I  HAVK  ONLY  MYSELF 
TO   JKLAMK 


KI.I/ABKTH    BIBESCO 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

GIFT  OF 

Mrs.  Ben  B.  Lin<5sey 


I  HAVE  ONLY  MYSELF 
TO  BLAME 

ELIZABETH  BIBESCO 


I  HAVE  ONLY 
MYSELF  TO  BLAME 

BY 
ELIZABETH  BIBESCO 


NEW  ^tar  YORK 

GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


Copyright,  1921, 
By  George  H.  Dor  an  Company 


Copyright,  1921,  By  The  McCall  Company 

Copyright,  1921,  By   The  Republic  Publishing   Company, 

Incorporated 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


TO 

MY  HUSBAND 


1106234 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


I  I  HAVE  ONLY  MYSELF  TO  BLAME  ....  11 

II     TOMORROW 24 

III  "THE  WEB" 31 

IV  AN  ORDINARY  MAN 39 

V     THE  GESTURE 46 

VI     CYCLAMEN 51 

VII     THE  DREAM 57 

VIII     THE  FAREWELL 61 

IX        TOUT   COMPRENDRB 67 

X    THREE  LOVE  LETTERS 86 

XI    THE  SUCCESSOR 94 

XII    As  IT  WAS  IN  THE  BEGINNING 109 

XIII  THE  OLD  STORY 112 

XIV  THE  PILGRIMAGE 124 

XV     THE  BALL 146 

XVI  FRAGMENT  OF  A  CORRESPONDENCE       .     .     .  153 


I  HAVE  ONLY  MYSELF 
TO  BLAME 


I   HAVE  ONLY  MYSELF 
TO  BLAME 

i 

I  HAVE  ONLY  MYSELF  TO  BLAME 

I  HAVE  only  myself  to  blame."  She  had  said  it 
to  herself  so  often  that,  once  she  set  the  words 
going  they  went  on  repeating  themselves  automatic- 
ally till  she  forced  herself  to  turn  them  off  as  if  they 
were  a  gramophone  record.  In  a  way  they  had  ceased 
to  mean  anything,  but  she  tried  to  give  their  sense 
back  to  them  by  repeating  each  word  slowly,  and 
forcibly  concentrating  her  mind. 

"Myself,  myself,  myself,"  she  said.  Self-accusa- 
tion had  become  her  one  form  of  relaxation. 

There  had  been  so  many  reasons  why  she 
shouldn't  marry  him,  and  only  one  reason  why  she 
should — if  it  could  be  called  a  reason. 

She  was  the  first  person  he  had  ever  loved.  He 
had  trembled  when  he  touched  her.  His  spasms 
of  passion  had  been  like  spasms  of  pain,  his  face  con- 
torted and  his  voice  rough,  and  then  there  had  fol- 
lowed intervals  of  wretched  shyness.  When  he  had 

it 


12  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

thought  of  possessing  her  he  had  become  a  saint 
waiting  for  a  divine  manifestation.  It  was  this 
transforming  of  an  ordinary  physiological  fact  into 
a  miracle  that  won  her.  She  could  see  inevitability 
— in  desire,  in  triumph,  in  failure.  Hers  was  the 
man's  attitude.  He  lifted  her  into  the  region  of  the 
ridiculous  and  the  sublime. 

"Your  privacy  is  sacred,"  he  said.  "Everything 
that  you  give  me  is  divine.  But  it  is  a  gift.  I 
have  no  rights." 

She  could  not  resist  the  thought  of  being  married 
to  a  monk.  He  had  made  no  vows  concerning  her 
spirit,  her  mind,  her  habits.  These  he  was  free  to 
violate.  Here  he  must  insist  on  asserting  himself. 

She  hadn't  thought  of  that.  .  .  . 

All  her  friends  tried  to  dissuade  her.  They  told 
her — some  delicately,  some  violently — things  about 
him  that  she  knew  better  than  they  did. 

"I  like  his  attitude  tow.ards  women,"  she  some- 
times explained  wearily. 

"My  dear !    What  a  reason !    You  of  all  people." 

"Just  so,"  she  said. 

Now  there  was  a  conspiracy  of  silence.  No  one 
said  anything  ever. 

"My  life  has  become  a  sort  of  solitary  confine- 
ment," she  laughed  drearily. 

Their  tact  and  her  loyalty  barred  the  doors. 

And  he  was  a  success!     He  was  a  member  of 


I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME  13 

Parliament  and  a  writer  of  magazine  stories.  Of 
most  of  them  she  was — avowedly — the  heroine.  He 
dexterously  hinted  it  in  interviews  and  blatantly  pro- 
claimed it  in  conversation — graciously,  a  furnace  of 
rage  burning  behind  her  eyes,  she  accepted  it  as  a 
toast.  One  of  his  most  successful  stories  had  been 
called  "Countess  Cherie,"  and  thus  his  friends  play- 
fully addressed  her.  It  branded  her,  and  she  was 
glad  to  be  bathed  by  her  friends  with  the  cool  water 
of  her  own  Christian  name. 

And  all  the  time  she  was  bound  to  him  by  some 
indefinable  physical  tie — not  her  passion  for  him, 
but  his  reverence  for  her — or  rather  for  her  body. 
She  wondered  if  what  she  gave  into  his  tender  deli- 
cate keeping  atoned  for  the  things  he  stole  and  broke. 

To-night  every  nerve  was  crying  out  "no"  while 
those  eternal  six  words  "I  have  only  myself  to 
blame,"  hummed  an  accompaniment. 

She  was  waiting  for  him  in  her  charming  boudoir. 
He  had  come  in  late  from  the  House  and  was  dress- 
ing for  dinner — he  always  dressed  for  dinner. 

In  a  detached  way  she  was  enjoying  the  firelight 
and  her  own  apricot  tea-gown,  but  she  was  too  much 
annoyed  with  him  for  changing  to  enjoy  either  very 
much.  Why  couldn't  he  have  come  in  as  he  was1? 

The  door  opened  and  he  appeared — very  immacu- 
late. She  would  have  felt  more  forgiving  had  he 
been  more  untidy. 


14  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

"I  must  apologise  for  having  kept  you  waiting." 

"You  shouldn't  have  changed." 

"I  disapprove  of  a  man  who  thinks  he  can  be  as 
dirty  and  untidy  as  he  likes,  simply  because  he  is  at 
home.  Besides,"  he  took  her  hand  and  kissed  it, 
"I  like  to  show  some  consideration  for  my  wife." 

How  well  she  knew  this  comedy  of  formality  that 
was  his  idea  of  fine  manners. 

Dinner  was  announced.    He  gave  her  his  arm. 

"A  very  good  wine,  my  Catherine."  He  sipped 
his  claret. 

"It  is  always  like  that.  Everything  that  belongs 
to  him  he  consecrates  by  possessing  it,"  she  thought 
angrily. 

He  enjoyed  the  dinner  and  his  own  conversation. 
By  including  her  in  his  complacency  he  did  his  duty 
to  his  wife. 

"I  met  Henry  Donald  to-day  and  asked  him  to 
come  in  after  dinner.  He  is  staying  the  night  at 
his  club  instead  of  going  back  to  the  country." 

"No  wonder,  with  a  wife  like  that  to  go  back  to." 

"Mrs.  Donald  is  a  friend  of  mine."  He  had  got 
his  stern  smile-proof  look. 

"Possibly.  But  hardly  a  favourite  of  his.  I 
can't  think  why  he  married  her,  though  I  suppose 
her  two  thousand  pounds  a  year  made  a  great  differ- 
ence to  him  at  that  time." 


I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME  15 

"Catherine,  I  forbid  you  to  say  such  coarse,  cruel 
things.  Henry  is  devoted  to  his  wife." 

"Well,  if  he  were  it  would  be  to  his  discredit." 

She  realised  what  a  particularly  silly  argument  it 
was. 

"I  could  almost  hate  you  when  you  talk  like  that." 

"And  I  have  no  redeeming  two  thousand  a  year." 

His  look  of  horror  disarmed  her  a  little. 

"Don't  look  so  horrified.  It  would  be  very  nice 
if  I  had." 

"I  hope  I  am  able  to  support  my  wife." 

"I  think  you  stand  her  wonderfully  well,  on  the 
whole." 

"That  was  not  what  I  meant."  She  had  made 
him  too  cross  to  be  bantered  back  into  sunniness. 

"Don't  you  wish  she  spent  a  little  more  on  her 
clothes?  Her  shoes  always  look  as  if  they  were 
recommended  by  a  chiropodist." 

He  did  not  smile. 

"Mrs.  Donald  is  a  good,  loyal,  simple  woman. 
As  the  wife  of  a  very  dear  friend  of  mine  she  is 
sacred  to  me." 

"Well,  I  could  wish  for  his  sake  that  she  were  a 
little  more  secular  and  alluring." 

"Catherine,"  his  voice  was  firm,  "there  are  cer- 
tain things  that  I  have  the  right  to  exact  from  my 
wife :  one  is  that  she  should  keep  her  bitter  tongue  off 
my  friends." 


l6  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

"And  their  wives  and  their  cousins  and  their  mis- 
tresses." 

"Catherine!" 

"Didn't  you  know  that  people  had  mistresses'?" 

"Mr.  Donald !"    The  announcement  was  a  relief. 

"Good  evening,  Mr.  Donald.  I  am  so  glad  to  see 
you." 

"You  have  come  just  in  time  for  some  port.  A 
most  excellent  wine.  You  will  not  be  allowed  to 
smoke  until  you  have  finished  it." 

Horace  was  in  his  element.  He  revelled  in  his 
duties  as  a  host.  He  knew  what  wine  should  be 
drunk  with  which  fish,  and  the  Lord  Chamberlain 
himself  had  not  a  more  accurate  knowledge  of  the 
laws  of  precedence.  He  enjoyed  offering  his  arm 
to  the  lady  of  highest  rank,  even  if  she  were  one 
of  his  wife's  supercilious  relations.  He  liked  the 
sight  of  diamonds  and  the  sound  of  titles — though 
fortunately  he  had  never  connected  these  pleasures 
with  their  source.  Above  all,  he  loved  the  moment 
when,  alone  with  the  men,  he  could  push  round  the 
decanters,  offer  cigars  of  varying  lengths  and  equal 
though  different  perfection,  and  dominate  the  con- 
versation. He  liked  to  tell  a  good  story  and  even  to 
listen  to  one.  His  love  of  a  prompt  retort  was  not 
confined  to  those  he  made  himself.  He  was  genu- 
inely fond  of  his  fellow-creatures,  loyal  to  his  friends 
and  ready  to  do  a  good  turn  to  anyone.  He  had  a 


I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME  I'J 

rigid  sense  of  honour  which  consisted  of  variations 
on  the  theme  of  "You  should  never  hit  a  man  when 
he  is  down" ;  "You  should  never  question  a  servant" ; 
"You  should  not  look  at  the  envelopes  of  your  wife's 
letters."  When  he  lost  ^game  he  was  always  the 
first  to  congratulate  the  winner  with  the  invariable 
formula  "The  best  man  won."  Victorious,  he  never 
omitted  to  say  "You  were  a  bit  off  colour,  old  chap," 
to  his  defeated  opponent.  He  preferred  cricket  and 
rugby  to  lawn  tennis  and  golf.  "Team  work,  there's 
nothing  like  it,"  was  his  watchword.  He  believed  in 
a  judicious  mixture  of  armaments  and  economy,  im- 
perialism and  free  trade.  He  believed  in  the  weak- 
ness of  women,  he  believed  in  not  believing  in  God. 
He  was  shocked  by  corporal  punishment  and  pros- 
titution, and  he  had  never  quite  been  able  to  make 
up  his  mind  about  vivisection.  He  thought  Freud 
an  impostor.  He  loved  animals,  he  was  on  the  wine 
committee  of  his  club.  He  was  a  good  son,  a  good 
brother,  a  good  husband,  a  good  citizen  and  a  good 
friend. 

Of  all  these  things  Catherine  was  devastatingly 
conscious.  She  watched  the  two  men  and  listened 
to  them  in  a  desultory  dispassionate  way.  Their 
conversation  was  so  full  of  nicknames  that  it  re- 
minded her  of  the  social  letter  in  the  "Tatler." 
Some  of  them  she  suspected  were  inaccurate.  Unim- 
peachable Johns  and  Williams  became  Jacks  and 


l8  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

Bills.  A  well-known  feminist  whose  "Margaret" 
was  a  trumpet  call  to  continents  emerged  from  a 
wrapping  of  "Maggie."  The  Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer  as  "Toddles"  was  revealed  by  subsequent 
side-lights.  "Why  should  I  mind1?  What  does  it 
matter?  Why  do  I  listen?"  thought  Catherine. 
"My  chatterbox  is  very  silent."  Horace  laid  his 
hand  on  hers,  "and  she  knows  she  only  enjoys  her- 
self when  she  is  talking  a  lot." 

"Don't  mind  him,  Mrs.  Little.  He  is  jealous  of 
your  superior  conversational  gifts." 

Don't  mind  him;  don't  mind  him,  she  reflected. 
What  excellent  advice.  She  smiled. 

"How  is  your  wife?"  she  inquired. 

"Much  better,  Mrs.  Little,  much  better,  thank 
you.  She  is  looking  forward  to  paying  her  respects 
to  you  when  she  comes  to  town." 

Why  did  he  keep  repeating  her  name  like  a  nursery 
governess? 

"And  the  children?"  she  persisted. 

"Very  well,  thank  you.  Charley-boy  is  going  to 
school  next  term." 

"How  dreadful  for  his  poor  mother." 

"Well,  it  will  be  rather  a  wrench  for  her,  Mrs. 
Little,  but  the  time  has  come  for  him  to  be  made  a 
man  of." 

There  was  a  pause.  Catherine  thought,  "Why 
does  one  always  want  to  listen  and  to  interrupt  at 


I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME  1Q 

the  same  time  if  one  is  amused,  or  to  do  neither  if 
one  isn't?" 

Horace  thought,  "She  always  tries  to  make  my 
friends  seem  dull." 

Henry  thought,  "Charming  feminine  woman, 
Mrs.  Little,  but  dashed  if  I've  ever  seen  any  of  that 
wit  people  talk  about." 

"Shall  you  send  your  daughter  to  school,  too,  or 
have  a  governess?"  Catherine  painfully  pursued 
the  topic  of  the  young  Donalds'  education  which 
interested  no  one,  not  even  their  father. 

"It's  a  very  difficult  question,  isn't  it?  Rather 
lonely  for  an  only  girl  and  yet  one  doesn't  want  to 
send  her  to  a  school  where  she  might  er — hear 
things." 

The  hesitation  and  the  blush  were  too  much  for 
Catherine. 

"You  ought  to  talk  to  her  quite  frankly,"  she 
said  firmly,  "facts  are  only  disgusting  if  they  are 
hinted  at  and  sniggered  at  and  veiled,  so  that  they 
become  the  centre  of  perverted  imaginings  and  igno- 
rant curiosity." 

Horace  was  horrified  by  the  turn  the  conversation 
had  taken. 

"By  the  way,"  he  intervened  hastily  ("what  way," 
she  wondered)  "I  met  your  uncle  Wrotham  in  the 
street." 

"Who  with?" 


2O  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

"Miss  Gardiner." 

"A  sweetly  pretty  girl."  Henry  was  glad  to  be 
off  the  rocks.  "I  saw  Lord  Wrotham  escort  her 
onto  the  terrace  the  other  day.  A  charming  picture 
they  made.  He  is  a  most  magnificent  looking  man." 

"They  are  certainly  amazingly  alike." 

"They  are  surely  not  related?"  Henry  could 
easily  have  graduated  for  the  College  of  Heralds. 

Catherine  raised  her  eyebrows.  "Oh,  didn't  you 
know?  She  is  his  daughter." 

"Really,  Catherine,  how  can  you  talk  in  such  a 
disgusting  way  about  your  uncle." 

Horace  was  furious.  "But  it  isn't  disgusting. 
Uncle  George  lived  with  Mrs.  Gardiner  for  years. 
Everyone  knows — why  shouldn't  he,  poor  man? 
His  wife  has  been  shut  up  as  a  lunatic  for  ages." 

"She  is  still  his  wife  in  the  eyes  of  the  law." 

"Really,  Horace,  considering  that  you  don't  be- 
lieve in  God  you  really  have  taken  on  all  the  intol- 
erance of  all  the  churches  in  the  world." 

Again  they  had  reached  an  impasse.  One  of 
Horace's  rules  of  behaviour  was  "Never  argue  with 
your  wife  in  the  company  of  a  third  person."  He 
couldn't  begin  a  "by-the-way"  again,  and  he  was 
profoundly  grateful  when  Henry  said: 

"Life  is  full  of  tragedies.  We  should  try  to 
judge  charitably." 

This  unanswerable  truth  created  a  new  silence, 


I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME  21 

broken  first  by  Horace  offering  his  guest  a  cigar, 
and  then  by  Catherine  asking  if  the  telephone  rates 
were  really  to  be  raised? 

"I  know  I  shall  start  talking  about  venereal 
diseases  if  this  atmosphere  lasts  much  longer,"  she 
said  to  herself. 

At  last  Henry  rose  to  say  good-night.  The  relief 
at  his  impending  departure  brought  a  rush  of  conver- 
sation. Suddenly  they  were  all  full  of  things  they 
were  longing  to  say.  Speaking  all  together  they 
shouted  one  another  down,  laughing  and  talking 
twenty  to  the  dozen.  Drowned  in  the  noisy  cordial- 
ity of  their  good-byes,  Henry  took  his  departure. 
Horace  came  back  into  the  room  and  shut  the  door. 
This,  as  his  wife  knew,  was  the  herald  of  a  scene. 
Yawning  and  stretching  herself,  she  set  light  to  his 
anger.  "God,  what  an  evening!  I  was  too  bored 
even  to  listen  to  what  I  was  saying  myself." 

"You  were  lucky.  I  unfortunately  heard  every 
word  you  said." 

"I  must  apologise  for  having  been  almost  as  dull 
as  Mr.  Donald.  Such  is  infection." 

"Henry  is  an  excellent  fellow  and  a  charming 
companion.  With  your  amiable  desire  to  distress 
and  embarrass  my  friends  I  realise  that  you  deliber- 
ately chose  to  discuss  such  enthralling  topics  as  the 
sexual  education  of  girls  and  your  uncle's  bastards." 

"What  extraordinary  language  you  use  about  my 


22  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

poor  cousins,  but  if  I  talked  too  much  about  my 
family,  I  am  sorry.  It  is  a  most  tiresome  habit." 

Deliberately  she  was  infuriating  him,  drawling  at 
him  with  perfect  control  of  her  temper. 

"You  will  please  realise  that  I  am  master  in  my 
own  house,"  he  asserted  irrelevantly. 

"Of  course,  dear.    Let  us  go  to  bed." 

He  strode  to  the  door  and  locked  it. 

"Not  until  you  have  apologised." 

"I  apologise."  She  was  smiling  at  him  a  calm, 
amused  smile. 

He  strode  back  to  the  door  and  unlocked  it. 

"Thank  you."  She  bowed  her  head  as  she  left  the 
room.  The  gesture  of  a  queen  in  a  carriage.  He 
was  frustrated,  impotent,  furious.  "She  deserves  to 
be  smacked/'  he  said  to  himself,  and  then  remem- 
bered that  no  man  ever  struck  a  woman. 

She  undressed  and  wondered  whether  he  would 
come  up  to  bed.  She  felt  very  tired  and  the  evening 
had  been  a  complete  failure.  She  had  behaved 
childishly  and  in  a  way  that  she  was  forced  to  admit 
was  rapidly  becoming  characteristic.  In  a  way 
Henry  ought  to  have  helped  them.  She  had  abso- 
lutely nothing  to  say  to  her  husband  when  they 
were  alone.  She  heard  Horace's  footsteps  on  the 
stairs.  He  paused  and  knocked  at  her  door. 

"You  baby,"  he  said,  "how  young  you  look  with 


I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAMii  23 

your  hair  down.  May  I  sit  in  your  armchair  for 
a  moment'?" 

She  pushed  it  nearer  the  fire  and  got  on  to  his  knee. 
With  the  curling  capacity  of  a  cat  she  fitted  herself 
into  his  arms.  Suddenly  she  began  to  cry. 

"Horace,"  she  said,  "I'm  so  lonely,  so  terribly 
lonely." 

He  kissed  her  and  soothed  her  and  mesmerised 
her.  Then  he  lifted  her  into  bed.  She  dreamt  that 
she  and  Horace  and  Lord  Wrotham  and  Miss 
Gardiner  and  Freud  were  talking  about  girls'  schools 
and  then  Henry  arrived,  saying  "Here  is  Toddles," 
and  Horace  said,  "We  will  not  pollute  this  port 
with  smoke,"  and  she  answered,  "I  have  only  myself 
to  blame." 


II 

TO-MORROW 

half-hour  of  crowded  anticipation,  how 
JL  fully  it  pays  for  the  sterile  hour  that  follows ! 
What  you  possess  is  not  what  you  jingle  in  the  pock- 
ets of  your  memory,  but  the  imaginings  with  which 
you  fill  the  spaces  of  the  future.  Reality  can  never 
touch  them,  yet  of  such  are  the  Kingdom  of  Life. 

This  was  the  moment  she  must  enjoy.  These 
minutes  before  he  arrived,  when  their  glorious  happy 
hour  together — usually  so  unhappy  when  it  came — 
was  still  to  come.  Once  he  is  there  she  can  hear 
nothing  but  the  clock  ticking  the  beats  of  her  heart, 
tolling  the  knell  of  each  minute.  The  past  will 
seem  to  be  capturing  the  present  at  an  overwhelming 
rate.  She  can  never  enjoy  being  with  him  for  the 
knowledge  that  they  will  so  soon  be  separated, 
and  what  is  worse,  separate,  walking  down  differ- 
ent streets,  talking  to  different  people,  thinking 
different  thoughts.  Her  heart  will  stop  beating 
when  she  sees  him  post  a  letter  and  realises  that  she 
will  never  know  what  is  in  it. 

But  to-day  must  be  perfect,  it  is  the  last  time 
for  so  long.  She  must  try  to  keep  calm  and  amus- 

24 


TO-MORROW  25 


ing  and  alluring,  as  she  had  been  in  the  days  before 
she  loved  him,  the  days  when  he  had  loved  her  best. 
She  mustn't  allow  the  edge  to  come  from  her  nerves 
into  her  voice;  she  mustn't  make  those  desperate 
irrelevant  grabs  at  certainty.  She  begins  to  feel  faint 
and  sick  and  too  restless  to  sit  down,  and  yet  she 
must  be  in  a  chair  when  he  arrives  and  have  some- 
thing to  hold  on  to,  something  to  give  her  poise. 
Every  now  and  then  she  looks  into  a  glass,  but 
can  only  see  a  white  blur,  and  feeling  the  back 
of  her  head  with  her  hands,  she  detaches  the  hairs 
she  means  to  smooth. 

She  tries  to  focus  her  attention  by  nailing  her 
eyes  on  to  her  little  silver  feet.  "I  wonder  if  I  am 
looking  pretty*?"  she  thinks,  desperately;  and  still 
more  desperately,  "I  wonder  if  it  matters'?"  Every 
noise  becomes  the  noise  of  a  taxi  and  real  taxis 
come  rushing  past.  At  last  one  stops — she  hears  a 
step  on  the  staircase — the  bell  goes  through  her  like 
an  electric  shock.  ^£' 

He  comes  in  and  looks  at  her  for  a  moment  with- 
out speaking.  "You  are  looking  very  beautiful!" 
Her  eyes  shine.  She  feels  herself  to  be  the  incarna- 
tion of  beauty.  "It's  for  you,"  she  stops  herself 
from  saying.  She  mustn't  force  things.  He  kisses 
her  hand.  She  feels  so  happy  and  at  peace.  The 
clock  has  stopped. 

"I  oughtn't  to  have  come,"  he  says.     "You  said 


26  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

I  was  grumpy  and  gloomy  the  other  day ;  I  am  much 
worse  now.  I  don't  know  what  has  come  over  me." 

She  looks  at  him  anxiously  and  fingers  his  sleeve. 

"Have  you  a  headache?"  (She  hopes  he  is  ill.) 
"Can  I  do  anything  for  you?" 

"Nothing,  thank  you." 

She  is  chilled,  he  is  silent. 

And  then:  "Do  you  remember  Jameson,  that 
archaeologist  in  Abyssinia?"  She  has  forgotten 
Jameson,  but  she  hastily  assents,  trying  to  be  nearer 
him  by  this  link  in  their  pasts.  "I  met  him  to-day." 

Jameson  has  become  the  centre  of  the  universe. 
She  listens,  to  his  voice  really,  but  with  the  surface 
of  her  intelligence  she  comments,  in  order  to  be  the 
wonderful  listener  he  always  praised. 

Dinner  is  announced — Jameson  is  abandoned. 

She  wants  this  meal  to  be  a  Holy  Communion 
between  them. 

He  is  happy  now,  talking,  full  of  reminiscences 
which  usually  begin  with  "You  remember"  (she 
likes  them  to  begin  like  that),  though  many  of  them 
deal  with  times  before  she  was  born  or  before  she 
knew  him — only  she  can't  admit  that  he  was  born 
before  she  was  or  that  there  was  a  time  when  they 
didn't  know  one  another. 

He  is  telling  her  a  story  about  the  East,  but  his 
voice  chloroforms  her  to  what  he  is  saying.  "I 
want  to  consult  you."  She  is  alert  now,  vitally 


TO-MORROW  27 


interested.  It  is  only  on  a  very  small  point,  but  she 
is  glad  to  have  had  her  advice  asked. 

Suddenly:  "You  look  tired,"  he  says.  "I  am 
glad  you  are  going  to  have  a  holiday."  (A  holiday !) 
"To-morrow  at  this  time  you  will  be  in  the  train. 
Let  me  see,  you  ought  just  to  have  reached " 

He  becomes  a  map  and  a  time-table.  She  shud- 
ders. Why  doesn't  he  say  he  is  sorry  she  is  going*? 
How  odd  men  are! 

They  go  into  the  next  room  and  she  puts  her  head 
on  his  shoulder,  while  half  absently  he  strokes  her 
hair.  He  has  never  kissed  her  since  she  married, 
though  he  once  took  her  face  in  his  hands  and  said : 
"You  make  it  so  difficult  for  me,"  and,  elated,  she 
had  wondered  how  to  make  it  much  more  difficult 
still. 

She  wishes  he  would  put  his  face  near  hers,  and 
comfort  her  and  cosset  her  like  a  child — just  now 
she  only  wants  tenderness,  not  passion. 

"When  are  you  going  to  Abyssinia*?"  she  asks. 

He  tells  her. 

"Do  you  wish  I  were  coming  with  you*?" 

"No.    It  is  no  fit  place  for  a  woman." 

"But  if  it  were?" 

"It  would  not  be  Abyssinia." 

"Don't  be  so  matter-of-fact."     She  could  hit  him. 

"I  told  you  I  was  no  fit  companion  for  anyone 
to-night." 


28  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

"But  I'm  not  anyone." 

"Not  even  for  you,  then." 

She  knows  that  she  is  going  to  give  him  an  opening 
to  hurt  her  so  she  rushes  back  to  Jameson.  She  is 
determined  to  be  brilliant  and  she  succeeds.  She 
sees  him  laughing  and  thinking  what  wonderful  com- 
pany she  is.  As  if  she  cared  a  damn!  And  it  is 
getting  later  and  later,  the  whole  evening  slipping 
away  like  this. 

"Are  you  going  to  write  to  me*?" 

"Of  course." 

"Long,  intimate,  indiscreet  letters'?" 

"You  know  what  my  letters  are  like.  They  never 
fulfil  any  of  your  requirements,  do  they?" 

"I  don't  think  I  get  as  good  as  I  give." 

"But,  then,  you  are  a  born  letter-writer." 

"Do  you  remember  the  first  letter  I  ever  wrote 
you?" 

"Yes." 

"It  was  ages  ago,  just  before  I  was  married." 

"It  doesn't  seem  such  ages  to  me." 

"Ah,  but  you  haven't  married." 

The  thought  gives  her  courage  and  happiness. 
After  all,  he  isn't  married. 

"I  must  be  going,"  he  says.  "It  has  been  a  very 
happy  evening."  (Happy!) 

"Bless  you,  my  dear." 

He  looks  into  her  eyes  and  he  goes. 


TO-MORROW  29 


She  undresses  feverishly.  How  long  will  it  take 
him  to  get  home?  She  takes  up  the  receiver.  No 
reply.  She  waits  an  eternity.  Five  minutes.  She 
forces  herself  to  wait  another  five.  Then  she  tries 
again. 

"Is  that  you?" 

"Yes." 

"I  have  rung  up  to  say  'Good-night/  ' 

"How  nice  of  you !" 

"I  am  very  nice." 

"I  know." 

Suddenly  she  feels  at  ease  for  the  first  time.  Her 
voice  gurgles  and  bubbles.  She  tells  him  little 
things  that  people  said  to  her  in  shops.  He  laughs. 
Their  bodily  separation  has  brought  them  together 
again.  Intimacy  is  enveloping  them.  She  blesses 
the  telephone. 

"I  have  got  my  light  out,  and  you?" 

"I  am  not  undressed." 

"Shall  I  see  you  again?" 

"What  time  does  your  train  go?" 

"At  one." 

"Perhaps  we  might  go  for  a  drive  together  in  the 
morning?" 

"Yes,  do  let's.    Good-night,  dearest;  bless  you." 

Fancy  her  ringing  oif  first!  She  is  frightened  of 
spoiling  it. 

"Bless  you." 


3O  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

"Say  'dearest/  " 

"Dearest." 

She  is  so  happy,  so  radiantly  happy,  for  after  all 
there  is  to-morrow,  and  to-morrow  is  bound  to  be 
perfect. 

"I  won't  wear  my  old  coat  and  skirt  to  travel  in," 
she  murmurs  to  herself  till,  her  consciousness  merg- 
ing into  dreams,  she  falls  asleep. 


Ill 

"THE  WEB" 

SHE  drove  into  the  little  Westminster  backwater 
in  which  he  lived.  Sure — as  she  had  so  often 
been  sure  before — that  to-day  she  v/ould  be  courage- 
ous and  not  sacrifice  the  hour  to  the  moment  or  a 
lifetime  to  the  hour.  What  was  the  good  of  trying 
not  to  hurt  if  the  ultimate  hurt  she  was  bound  to 
inflict  increased  in  proportion  to  the  small  wounds 
she  avoided"?  She  had  no  blind  eye  to  which  to 
put  her  telescope.  By  experience  she  knew  that 
every  time  she  tried  to  pay  off  some  of  her  indebted- 
ness by  a  gesture  of  tenderness  she  was  in  reality 
increasing  her  liabilities. 

To-day  the  little  corner  of  Westminster  that 
she  had  always  loved  seemed  more  even  than  usual 
to  envelop  her  in  their  mutual  intimacy.  The 
evening  air  was  shot  with  red  gold  and  the  tree  like 
a  giraffe,  that  she  had  often  fondled  with  her  eyes, 
beckoned  to  her  with  irresistible  self-confidence. 

"The  last  door  on  the  right,"  she  said  to  the  taxi, 

:d  to  herself,  "I  won't  look  up.    I  will  do  nothing 
sleading."     She  knew  that  he  would  be  bending 
t  of  the  window,  his  eyes  drawing  her  into  his 
house,  his  face  lit  up  by  the  sight  of  her. 

31 


; 


32  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

She  rang  the  bell.  "Perhaps  he  didn't  hear  the 
taxi,"  she  thinks,  and  she  looks  up  to  see.  He  is 
watching  her  with  a  quiet,  ecstatic  look,  while  her 
silver  cloak  entangles  bits  of  the  sunset.  The  old 
housekeeper  welcomes  her  lovingly.  Here  indeed 
is  the  wife  she  would  have  chosen  for  her  beloved 
pampered  young  master. 

He  himself  is  standing  at  the  top  of  the  stairs. 
"Helana!  At  last!"  She  is  in  his  little  room — in 
the  middle  of  his  slum  of  books.  Red  gold  dust  in 
her  eyes  and  a  ridiculous  irrelevant  feeling  of  being 
at  home  in  her  heart. 

"How  long  have  you  been  away?  Five  whole, 
endless  days  empty  of  everything  but  my  thoughts 
of  you." 

"How  well  you  talk."  His  phrasing  has  cooled 
her. 

His  face  changes.  Cold,  hard  lines  come  out 
everywhere.  "You  always  manage  to  spoil  every- 
thing, don't  you*?" 

Desperately  she  clutches  at  her  opportunity.  "I 
know  I  do  always.  It  is  dreadful.  You  don't  know 
how  I  hate  to  rain  for  your  picnic." 

"It  is  so  easy  for  you  not  to.  You  are  fighting 
not  me  but  yourself." 

"I  am  not  fighting  anything — not  even  my  own 
cowardice.  Do  you  think  I  like  making  you  un- 
happy? Do  you  think  it  amuses  me"?  We  just  are 


THE   WEB  33 

hopelessly  unsuited  to  one  another.  Do  you  seri- 
ously think  that  you  want  a  wife  like  me*?" 

"Marriage  will  modify  you." 

"Marriage  might  modify  me  if  I  married  the 
right  man.  Marriage  to  you  would  bring  out  every- 
thing you  hate." 

"Helena,  do  you  realise  that  I  love  you*?" 

As  always  before  this  real,  undeniable,  important, 
impossible  fact  she  stops.  To  her  it  is  a  brick  wall 
to  be  surmounted  neither  by  argument — that  being 
unconvincing — nor  surrender — that  being  unattain- 
able. She  looks  at  him  with  wide,  frightened  eyes. 

"Helena,  you  don't  know  what  love  means." 

Again  she  snatches  at  her  opportunity.  "Of 
course  I  don't.  If  I  did  I  might  want  to  marry 
you." 

"You  love  me,  but  you  don't  know  it.  You 
fight  it,  you  won't  admit  it.  You  let  me  love  you. 
You  made  me  love  you.  What  am  I  to  think*?" 

"Think  the  worst  of  me  and  let  me  go." 

"I  can't.  You  are  as  much  mine  as  if  you  were 
my  wife." 

She  hates  him  for  his  assumptions  and  his  cer- 
tainties. How  can  she  get  away  from  him? 

"Yes." 

Her  voice  is  very  low.  "If  you  want  me,  I  will 
give  myself  to  you." 


34  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

"I  want  much  more  than  that — and  much  less — 
if  you  like." 

She  has  keyed  herself  up  to  this  supreme  act  of 
escape.  If  only  he  lets  her  do  this  her  sense  of 
honour  will  be  satisfied  and  she  will  be  free — with 
no  more  debts  to  haunt  and  entangle  her. 

How  can  she  get  him  to  accept? 

"You  talk  about  love,"  she  says.  "What  a  strange, 
restricted  growth  it  is  with  you.  You  don't  know 
what  the  real  thing  means,  you  who  think  passion 
is  bad  taste  because  you  are  not  tempted,  you  to 
whom  the  physical  side  is  a  degrading  extra."  Her 
words  are  deliberate  and  clipped  like  a  box  hedge. 
She  is  ashamed — bitterly  ashamed — but  what  else 
can  she  do? 

"Helena,"  his  voice  is  rough,  "be  careful  what 
you  say.  Don't  you  think  I  want  you,  that  I  desire 
you — if  that  is  the  sort  of  language  you  like*?" 

He  has  gripped  her  two  arms.  She  bites  her  lip 
and,  shutting  her  eyes,  waits.  Suddenly  he  releases 
her  and  turns  away.  She  can  hear  his  breath  coming 
in  quick,  uneven  stabs. 

"And  yet  you  refuse  me  when  I  offer  myself  to 
you?" 

She  says  it  very  slowly  in  a  low,  caressing  voice. 
In  her  heart  she  knows  that  his  valuation  is  the  same 
as  hers — only  to  him  her  gift  would  mean  disillu- 
sion and  to  her  freedom. 


"THE  WEB"  35 

"I  don't  accept  a  debased  currency."  His  voice  is 
like  ice,  and  then  passionately,  "I  hate  you  when 
you  talk  like  that." 

"You  don't  think  it  like  a  lady?" 

She  remembers  a  hundred  instances  of  his  inso- 
lent, moral  magnificence.  "You  want  me  to  sign 
your  name,  to  sit  at  the  head  of  your  table,  to  dazzle 
your  friends,  to  eclipse  your  sisters-in-law,  to  be  a 
mother  to  your  children." 

She  is  working  herself  up. 

"Certainly,  and  I  want  you  to  be  my  wife,  my 
beloved — my  sweetheart." 

His  voice  has  suddenly  melted,  the  glint  has  given 
way  to  a  glow.  She  feels  battered  by  his  logic  and 
his  love  and  the  reality  of  what  he  is  saying. 

"Luke,  do  you  want  me  to  marry  you  whether  I 
want  to  or  not?" 

"Yes.    I  mean  to  marry  you." 

At  dinner  they  talk  of  other  things.  There  is  a 
cushion  at  the  back  of  her  chair  and  flowers  by  her 
plate  and  little  things  that  she  likes  to  eat. 

She  doesn't  say  much.    Her  head  aches. 

After  dinner  he  makes  her  put  her  feet  up  and  curl 
into  his  sofa  like  a  long  stretched  cat. 

Very  gently,  very  tenderly  he  puts  his  cool  hand 
on  her  forehead.  He  has  always  had  that  curiously 
healing  touch.  He  doesn't  worry  her  or  fuss  her. 
He  never  mentions  a  dangerous  topic.  Simply  she 


36  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

has  a  feeling  of  relaxation  as  if  she  were  in  a  warm 
bath.  A  drowsy  feeling  of  comfort  comes  over  her. 
He  talks  to  her  without  waiting  for  or  expecting 
an  answer. 

Daylight  seems  to  have  faded  before  their  eyes, 
leaving  a  bright  blue  night  with  very  yellow  lights 
shining  out  of  windows  and  lamps.  He  has  lit  a 
wood  fire,  which  warms  her  eyes  and  gives  a  flicker- 
ing unreality  to  the  room. 

"After  all,"  she  defends  herself  to  herself,  "no 
one  can  make  a  scene  by  firelight." 

He  is  stroking  the  creamy  velvet  of  her  dress  and, 
bending  down  with  the  ceremoniousness  those  flowers 
demand,  he  smells  the  gardenias  at  her  waist  while 
she  notices  that  their  white  suede  petals  are  shriv- 
elling into  yellow  vellum. 

The  pearls  at  her  neck  have  allowed  little  patches 
of  the  fire  to  settle  on  them,  and  undoing  their  clasp 
he  lets  them  trickle  through  his  fingers  like  sand. 
Kissing  her  hand  he  gets  to  the  heart  of  that  faint 
scent  of  hers  that  seems  like  the  memory  or  the 
echo  of  something  forgotten. 

She  knows  how  he  loves  these  things,  the  ever 
old  and  the  ever  new  delight  that  they  are  to  him. 
She  tries  to  fight  the  anchored  sense  that  is  coming 
over  her  with  a  question  about  some  book.  His 
opinion  on  that,  and  indeed  almost  all  subjects,  is 
valueless  to  her.  It  doesn't  even  interest  her.  But 


"THE  WEB  37 

to-night  she  asks  only  to  be  irritated,  for  some  word 
of  his  to  let  loose  the  things  she  has  come  to  say. 
He  doesn't  want  to  talk  about  a  topic,  but  he  reads 
her  a  little  poem,  and  a  certain  lilt  in  the  meaningless 
words  lulls  her  into  an  even  greater  quiescence. 

"I  wonder  if  you  yourself  realise  the  magic  of 
your  presence  in  this  house,"  he  says. 

But  it  is  not  a  question,  and  after  saying  it  he  is 
silent. 

It  is  ridiculous  that  she  should  like  his  talking  like 
that,  and  she  likes  it  too  when  later  he  gives  her  a 
wonderful  description  of  what  he  would  feel  like 
were  she  to  fall  asleep  on  his  sofa.  Her  eyelids  keep 
closing  as  if  he  were  mesmerising  her,  she  is  clutch- 
ing at  consciousness  like  a  drowning  woman,  but  the 
water  is  very  warm. 

Suddenly  something  inside  her  capsizes. 

"Luke,  do  you  really  want  to  marry  me*?" 

"I  want  your  headache  to  go.  We  won't  discuss 
anything  else." 

The  evening  drifts  into  a  happy  little  creek  of 
understanding.  She  has  a  feeling  of  blue  air  and 
diamond  decked  water.  She  knows  it  is  ridiculous, 
the  effects  of  a  headache  on  her  part  and  a  little  cal- 
culated generosity  on  his. 

She  may  not  be  taken  in  but  she  is  taken. 

At  last  she  gets  up  to  go. 


38  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

"Remember,  I  am  waiting  for  you  to  give  me  your 
headache." 

"And  nothing  else?"  She  could  hit  herself  for 
saying  it. 

"That  is  all  I  am  asking  for  to-night." 

She  drives  away,  forcing  a  retrospect  of  her  eve- 
ning into  her  soul  like  a  hot  iron.  Always  it  is  like 
that.  She  gives  way  to  the  immediate,  a  desire  to 
make  him  happy  or  to  be  happy,  an  indulging  in 
the  indulgence  of  being  wanted.  She  likes  to  be 
comforting  and  perhaps  even — horrible  thought — 
comfortable.  And  always  she  gets  nearer  the  middle 
of  the  web.  "To-night  after  all  I  had  a  headache, 
but  to-morrow  I  will  face  the  facts  and  tell  the  truth 
and  tear  the  whole  false  fabric  to  bits " 

To-morrow ! 


IV 

AN  ORDINARY  MAN 

HE  was  driving  her  home  in  a  taxi,  and  in  em- 
phasis of  something  she  was  saying  she 
pressed  his  knee  with  her  hand.  With  a  jerk  he 
shrank  back  into  his  corner,  and  revealed  to  her  for 
the  first  time  the  intensity  of  his  passion  for  her. 
After  that  she  avoided  seeing  him  alone;  but  the 
very  fact  that  they  both  knew  made  the  atmosphere 
more  explosive.  The  air  was  unbreathable  with 
the  impending  thunderstorm. 

To-day  it  had  broken,  and  she  was  looking  at 
him  with  big,  distressed  eyes,  feeling  somehow  that 
it  was  indecent  for  her  to  be  seeing  a  naked  soul. 
His  whole  face  and  voice  had  changed.  Every 
now  and  then  he  shut  his  eyes  as  if  to  blot  out  her 
physical  presence.  His  mouth  seemed  a  different 
shape,  and  his  hot,  dry  lips  had  a  limp,  formless 
look  as  if  he  had  no  control  over  them. 

The  thought  struck  her  that  they  looked  water- 
proof, but  she  put  the  ribald  suggestion  from  her, 
shocked  by  her  own  levity. 

"You  are  so  unlike  other  women,"  he  said.  She 
accepted  it  with  a  sigh,  wondering  if  anyone  would 
ever  say  to  her:  "You  are  all  the  women  who  have 

39 


4O  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

ever  lived,  and  yourself."  What  fun  to  be  Helen 
and  Cleopatra  and  Madame  de  Genlis  and  Jane 
Welsh  Carlyle!  Her  mind  was  wandering. 

"You  see,  I  have  never  met  anyone  at  all  like 
you,"  he  went  on,  while  she  added  Ninon  de  1'Enclos 
and  Jane  Austen  to  her  list.  "I  didn't  know  I  could 
want  to  kiss  anyone  more  than  anything  in  the  world 
and  then  not  do  it  out  of  love." 

This  brought  back  her  attention.  Always  she 
had  been  loved  by  sensual  men  reverently ;  once  only 
by  an  intellectual  passionately.  Both  were  flat- 
tering, the  first  more  convenient,  the  second  more 
satisfactory. 

"I  wonder  if_you  know  what  I  mean1?" 

"I  think  I  do,"  she  said  very  gently,  as  one  who 
had  strained  her  subtlety  to  meet  the  peculiarities  of 
the  situation. 

"I  believe  you  would  find  it  difficult  to  forgive 
me  if  I  kissed  you,"  he  went  on,  "you  are  so  odd. 
I  believe  you  would  really  be  angry." 

"Not  angry — sad,"  she  said,  smiling  a  little 
cynically  at  this  mobilisation  of  his  chivalry. 

"Good  God!  don't  you  know  I  would  rather  die 
than  make  you  that*?" 

He  knelt  down  and  put  his  head  in  her  lap.  "I 
wish  I  could  do  things  for  you  every  day  and  all  day, 
for  ever." 

She  seemed  to  meet  him  everywhere,  and  always 


AN  ORDINARY  MAN  41 

the  knowledge  that  he  was  in  the  room  made  her 
prettier.  There  is  nothing  so  beautifying  as  being 
loved.  It  was  delightful  to  feel  that,  whomever  he 
was  talking  to  and  whomever  he  was  looking  at, 
his  ears  and  eyes  were  really  running  away  towards 
her. 

He  never  could  make  up  his  mind  whether  to  go 
up  to  her  or  not.  He  hated  to  have  to  snatch  little 
moments  of  her  time  away  from  other  people — 
people  to  whom  she  was  merely  a  woman,  or  a  friend, 
or  even  an  acquaintance — and  yet  he  could  not  keep 
away.  He  had  to  come  up  to  see  whether  her  face 
was  just  the  same  as  he  remembered  it  and  to  hear 
the  gurgle  in  her  voice  like  the  pouring  of  water 
when  the  jug  is  nearly  full. 

"Poor  man,  he  is  terribly  in  love  with  you." 

"Do  you  think  so*?"  she  answered  with  arched 
eyebrows.  "He  is  always  very  sweet  to  me  and  he  is 
wonderfully  unselfish,  and  then,  poor  man" — her 
voice  was  infinitely  tender — "he  is  suffering  from 
shell-shock." 

She  liked  him  best  when  he  hurried  her  out  of 
draughts,  wrapped  rugs  round  her  legs,  pulled  up  the 
collars  of  her  coats  and  nearly  strangled  her  with 
her  furs.  The  little  touch  of  clumsiness  in  his 
tenderness  always  melted  her.  .  .  . 

"All  the  afternoon  while  I  played  cards  at  my 
club  I  smelt  my  hands,  for  it  seemed  to  me  that  a 


42  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

little  whiff  of  your  scent  had  clung  to  them."  .  .  . 

His  letters  were  curiously  better  than  she  expected 
them  to  be-1— always.  And  she  liked  his  graceful 
hand-writing  and  the  way  he  wrote  her  name. 

There  was  a  woman — a  girl — who  was  in  love 
with  him  and  of  whom  he  saw  a  great  deal.  She 
always  praised  her  and  sometimes  wondered. 

The  doctor  sent  him  to  the  country;  and  twice 
every  day  he  wrote  to  her  from  his  chaise-longue, 
and  twice  every  day  she  wrote  to  him  in  order  that 
no  post  should  be  a  disappointment.  She  never 
could  resist  illness.  He  went  to  stay  with  the  girl 
and  mentioned  her  very  little  in  his  letters.  Also 
he  wrote  about  "your  great  superiority;  when  we 
are  together  I  always  feel  that  I  am  mixing  dross 
with  gold."  Little  twinges  of  anxiety  went  through 
her. 

"What  a  contemptible  creature  I  am!"  she 
thought. 

"After  all,  I  didn't  want  his  love." 

He  came  to  stay  with  her,  and  his  great  talent 
came  into  play,  his  talent  for  country-house  life. 
He  did  everything  better  than  anyone  else;  but 
just  now  under  the  doctor's  orders  he  was  forbidden 
exercise.  Every  morning  she  went  into  his  room, 
and  he  very  courteously  refused  every  suggestion 
she  made  for  his  comfort  or  his  happiness.  Some- 
times she  played  golf  before  breakfast  so  that  she 


AN  ORDINARY  MAN  43 

should  be  back  in  time  for  him,  should  he  want  her. 
Always  she  tried  to  conceal  the  sacrifices  she  was 
making.  "I  would  be  so  grateful  if  you  would  come 
with  me  in  the  motor  .  .  ."  Or,  if  he  was  installed 
in  the  garden,  "May  I  come  and  sit  here  for  a  few 
minutes'?" 

There  were  days  when  nothing  was  right.  He 
contradicted  everything  she  said,  and  asked  her  if 
she  were  trying  to  irritate  him.  Sometimes  at  night 
in  bed  she  cried  with  exhaustion. 

Her  aunt  loved  him.  Such  a  very  nice  young 
man.  So  sweet  to  old  people.  So  touchingly  de- 
voted to  his  mother.  Why,  he  never  seemed  to  think 
of  himself  at  all.  His  manners  were  perfect.  He 
was  charming  to  everyone.  He  knew  something 
about  everything.  He  rarely  seemed  to  be  out  of 
his  depth,  but  then  he  could  swim  a  little.  She 
smiled  at  his  beautiful  steering  through  the  heavy 
traffic  of  facts.  His  public  attitude  towards  her  was 
perfect.  Tender,  deferential,  anxiously  considerate, 
he  always  seemed  to  be  there  to  push  her  chair  in 
or  to  pull  it  out;  and  when  he  picked  up  her  hand- 
kerchief or  her  glove,  he  gave  it  her  with  a  peculiar 
little  intimate  look  that  everyone  noticed.  She  knew 
that  people  said:  "His  care  of  her  is  really  very 
touching.  She  is  rather  a  selfish  woman."  She  went 
on  bearing  it  all,  deaf  to  his  delicate,  ingenious 
insults. 


44  !    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

"I  suppose,"  she  said  to  herself,  "that  I  love  him 
now  that  I  know  the  very  bottom  of  his  shallows." 
The  thought  humiliated  her,  but  she  faced  it  with 
the  rest. 

She  could  register  the  arrival  of  a  third  person 
by  the  change  in  his  voice  and  his  expression.  The 
caressing  note  and  the  caressing  look  that  once  be- 
longed to  her  were  now  exploited  on  her.  He  still 
lifted  her  feet  on  to  sofas  and  tucked  a  shawl 
round  her — unless  they  happened  to  be  alone.  She 
wondered  if  he  smiled  to  see  her  in  a  trap,  and 
sometimes  she  wondered  why  he  wanted  to  keep  her 
there. 

It  appeared  that  the  girl  was  engaged  to  someone 
else.  Perhaps  they  were  keeping  up  appearances. 
She  was  keeping  up  appearances  for  them.  And  he 
had  once  loved  her ! 

At  last  one  day  he  went.  He  said  good-bye  very 
tenderly,  though  there  was  only  a  porter  to  see  them. 
He  looked,  she  thought,  a  little  guilty. 

Out  of  the  window  of  the  train  he  took  her  hand 
and  kissed  it. 

"Still  the  same  old  scent.  I  have  forgotten  what 
it  was  called." 

"Gage  d'  amour"  she  murmured,  ridiculously  con- 
scious that  a  mist  of  tears  was  clouding  her  eyes. 
******* 

"I  want  you  to  be  the  first  to  know  .  .  ." 


AN  ORDINARY  MAN  45 

So  it  had  come  at  last,  the  long-expected  letter. 
She  looked  quickly  down  the  page  for  "I  want  you 
to  love  Effie";  and  there  sure  enough  it  was. 

She  laughed  a  little,  and  sent  them  a  magnifi- 
cently impersonal  present  with  an  invitation  to 
lunch. 

"You  are  a  wonderful  psychologist,"  said  the 
playwright.  "I  have  never  known  you  wrong." 

"Haven't  you1?"  she  smiled,  bantering  him  with 
the  tone  of  her  voice.  And  then,  seriously:  "I  was 
once  completely  taken  in  by  someone." 

"He  must  have  been  a  very  remarkable  person." 

"No,"  she  said,  meditatively,  "he  wasn't.  He 
was — yes — he  was  just  an  ordinary  man." 


THE  GESTURE 

THEY  were  ridiculously  happy.  Smiles  trickled 
about  her  mouth  irresponsibly,  irrepressibly, 
while  her  voice  gurgled  and  bubbled.  The  fire  was 
hot  and  glowing,  staining  bits  of  the  wall  and 
making  ruddy  puddles  among  the  silver  parapher- 
nalia of  tea  things.  Their  faces  too,  were  dyed  red 
and  seemed  unreal,  part  of  the  fantastic  delightful- 
ness  of  this  hour.  The  windows  framed  bright  blue 
plaques  of  evening  and  a  vase  of  poinsettias  looked 
like  a  wonderful  bunch  of  scarlet  octopuses.  She 
luxuriated  in  every  detail  of  her  happiness,  taking  a 
disproportionate  pleasure  in  a  bunch  of  lilies  of  the 
valley  that  lay  on  her  lap  and  seemed  to  throw  a 
web  of  fragrance  over  the  room. 

It  didn't  matter  what  either  of  them  said. 
Everything  was  equally  important  and  equally 
irrelevant.  Sometimes  she  would  have  a  little  break 
of  wit  and  he  would  applaud  as  if  it  were  a  turn. 
For  a  moment  they  would  play  the  game  of  not 
being  intimate  in  order  to  plunge  ecstatically  back 
again.  Then : 

"I  must  be  back  at  half  past  seven,"  he  said. 

That  sobered  her. 

46 


THE    GESTURE  47 


"Have  you  ever  thought  of  the  rubato  of  time," 
she  asked.  "That  though  a  clock  is  a  metronome, 
no  two  hours  are  ever  the  same  length*?" 

"Yes,"  he  said.     "The  shortest  are  eternal." 

They  talked  of  things  so  banal  that  they  would 
have  disgraced  a  debutante  at  a  dinner  party  and  of 
things  of  so  great  a  magnitude  that  it  seemed  ridicu- 
lous to  mention  them  at  all.  And  underneath  it  all 
ran  the  strong,  swift  current  of  their  intimacy. 

"We  might  never  have  met,"  he  said.  "It  was 
quite,  quite  an  accident." 

"Yes,"  she  smiled.  "You  restored  my  confidence 
in  turnings." 

"In  turnings?' 

"When  I  was  a  child,  I  thought  that  round  every 
corner  something  wonderful  was  waiting.  And  then 
for  years  the  same  sort  of  people  seemed  to  recur 
like  decimals,  just  a  lot  of  different  editions  of  the 
same  thing.  And  then  I  met  you." 

"And  I  was  prejudiced  to  the  verge  of  rudeness. 
I  hardly  listened  to  what  you  said." 

"Yes,  and  after  making  up  your  mind  to  hate  me 
you  had  to  climb  back  on  to  the  fence  and  dangle 
your  legs  on  the  other  side." 

"But  be  fair.  When  I  did  come  over  to  you,  I 
capitulated  entirely.  I  didn't  keep  one  little  defense 
in  reserve.  Whereas  you,  who  have  made  a  study 
of  giving  yourself  away,  always  keep  what  you 


48  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

want  to  keep  inviolate.  You  with  your  warm  in- 
vulnerability !" 

"Ah,  how  much  I  keep  back  from  you!"  she 
teased  him  and  suddenly  she  caught  sight  of  her 
watch. 

Half  past  seven. 

He  saw  her  and  asked  how  late  it  was.  By  the 
time  they  had  got  a  taxi  it  was  a  quarter  to  eight. 
She  was  going  in  a  diametrically  opposite  direction 
to  his  but  she  couldn't  resist  taking  him  part  of  the 
way — a  very  big  part  of  the  way— till  finally  she 
dropped  him  like  a  hot  potato,  it  was  easier  like 
that,  and  spurring  on  her  taxi,  she  rushed  to  the 
other  side  of  London. 

She  was  calling  for  a  very  dear  friend  at  his 
office  and  she  was  at  least  three  quarters  of  an  hour 
late.  Would  he  be  hurt  or  offended,  or  both? 
Would  she  have  to  spend  the  whole  evening  sooth- 
ing and  smoothing  his  ruffled  feelings,  till  she 
ended,  as  she  always  did  in  those  circumstances,  by 
saying  more  than  she  had  meant  to,  by  fanning 
flames  she  wanted  to  keep  low  and  then  making  des- 
perate efforts  to  retrieve  her  indiscretion*? 

"I  will  have  a  nice  evening,"  she  thought,  as  she 
saw  herself  see-sawing  from  one  extreme  to  the  other. 
And  then  she  would  have  to  make  up  her  mind 
whether  or  not  to  lie  about  what  had  kept  her — 
she  who  loathed  lying.  And  if  she  didn't,  she 


THE    GESTURE  49 


would  be  inflicting  extra  pain  and  opening  up 
interminable  vistas  of  questionings  and  justifications 
and  extenuations — and — so  it  seemed  to  her — vul- 
garisations. 

She  drove  up  to  the  office  and  rang  the  bell.  No 
answer.  Could  it  be  that  he  had  lost  patience  and 
left?  She  rang  again.  So  even  he  had  come  to 
the  end  of  his  forbearance.  She  thought  she  could 
see  a  light.  Better  telephone  in  case  he  hadn't  heard. 
She  crossed  the  road  in  search  of  a  telephone  and  ran 
straight  into  him. 

She  rushed  into  a  stream  of  blame  and  accusation. 

"So  you  couldn't  even  wait  for  me?" 

"My  dear,"  he  said,  "this  is  divine  of  you.  It 
is  like  you  to  have  given  me  this  lovely  surprise." 

Bewildered,  she  looked  at  him — surely  this  was 
rather  crude  irony? 

"What  surprise?" 

"Why  to  have  come  so  gloriously  unexpectedly 
early.  You  sometimes  hurt  me  and  make  me  angry, 
but  you  always  make  up  for  it  by  some  little  gesture 
of  a  tenderness,  some  unhoped  for  gift." 

"What  time  is  it?"  she  asked,  dazed. 

"Just  half  past  seven." 

"But,  then  it  must  have  been  half  past  six." 

"What  must  have  been  half  past  six?" 

"An  hour  ago,"  she  answered  inanely. 

But  he  hardly  listened. 


5O  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

"Thank  you,  my  darling,"  he  said,  kissing  her 
hand. 

She  smiled. 

"I  did  have  rather  a  rush,"  she  said. 


VI 

CYCLAMEN 

I   DO  love  that  chintz,"  he  said.    Her  eyes  veiled 
a  discreet  question  as  they  turned  from  the 
faded  pink  squiggles  to  his  face. 

He  smiled.  "I  said  I  loved  it — not  that  I  thought 
it  beautiful.  The  pattern  is  packed  with  memo- 
ries for  me."  He  was  silent  and  she  said  nothing, 
knowing  that  no  definite  enquiry  would  elicit  as 
much  as  her  indefinite,  all-pervading  sympathy.  But 
being  infinitely  curious,  she  tried  a  confidence  as  the 
first  step  to  a  counter-confidence. 

"So    many    things,"    she    said    "are    emotion- 
carriers — unexpected,  absurd  things." 
***** 

Then  "You  are  keeping  me  waiting,"  he  said. 

"Once  upon  a  time  there  was  a  man — or  rather 
just  before  the  war  I  knew  a  man — I  don't  know 
how  to  begin.  I  wasn't  in  love  with  him.  He 
wasn't  in  love  with  me,  but  I  was  a  revelation  to 
him — a  revelation  of  himself.  People  said  I  had  in- 
vented him.  It  wasn't  quite  true,  but  I  emphasized 
what  was  uncharacteristic  in  him  and  forced  my 
estimate  on  to  him,  when  he  was  with  me — he  was 

51 


52  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

nearly  always  with  me.  Away  from  me  he  relapsed 
into  his  own  personality,  but  I  didn't  know  it.  I 
don't  know  how  to  describe  him  to  you.  He  was 
often  considered  almost  half-witted.  His  mind  was 
like  a  searchlight  that  overlooked  cathedrals,  but 
occasionally  lit  up  some  small  forgotten  chapel. 
You  never  knew  where  it  would  dive  to,  what  irrele- 
vant objects  it  would  collect,  how  many  continents 
would  go  undiscovered.  He  was  a  delightful  com- 
panion. He  never  seemed  to  look  for  anything,  but 
some  sixth  sense  was  always  finding  things.  No  one 
else  saw  them  at  all,  and  I  suppose  I  magnified  them. 

"Then  the  war  broke  out.  I  was  in  the  North  of 
Scotland  when  he  was  reported  wounded  and  miss- 
ing. The  thoughts  I  thought  of  him  by  day  con- 
trolled by  my  strength  of  will  and  by  the  daylight, 
broke  loose  at  night,  running  riot  through  my  de- 
fenseless head.  They  didn't  become  dreams,  but 
seemed  parts  of  an  incoherent  melee  of  impressions 
and  memories.  And  always  I  was  in  quest  of  some- 
thing fixed,  some  certain  intonation  of  his  voice,  some 
definite  expression  in  his  eyes,  something  stable 
among  my  ever-wandering  images  of  him.  And 
always  it  eluded  me.  Have  you  noticed  how,  when 
you  are  anxious  about  someone,  it  is  the  little  things 
that  got  on  your  nerves  that  constitute  themselves 
into  claims'? 

"I  didn't  remember  the  way  he  wrapped  rugs 


CYCLAMEN  53 


'round  me;  the  wide  open  delighted  look  his  eyes  had 
when  he  said,  'I  never  thought  of  that.'  I  remem- 
bered a  little  bow-tie  that  looked  as  if  it  were  made 
of  sponge  bag  and  the  fact  that  he  used  the  word 
'cheery.'  Why  had  those  unimportant  details  mad- 
dened me  so,  and  why  did  they  now  assert  themselves 
so  poignantly?  What  contract  would  I  not  have 
signed  with  the  devil  for  a  sight  of  that  bow-tie — 
what  song  or  triumph  would  not  have  been  con- 
tained in  the  sound  of  that  word! 

"As  you  know,  the  first  thing  that  everyone  does 
in  the  country  is  to  go  to  the  nearest  town.  In 
Scotland  the  shops  are  always  the  same:  woollen 
scarves  and  tweeds,  kodaks  and  rheumatic  sponges, 
cairngorm  dirks  and  amethyst  thistles,  scones  and 
Edinburgh  rock  with  the  name  of  the  village  sub- 
stituted for  Edinburgh. 

"I  went  in  to  a  chemist's  and  after  rejecting  some 
lozenges  and  some  films,  a  loofah  and  a  bottle  of 
formamint,  I  fell  to  a  box  of  cyclamen  face  cream. 
It  promised  to  do  all  sorts  of  things  for  my  com- 
plexion, but  I  loved  it  for  itself  alone  and  without 
any  vulgar  hope  of  personal  advantage.  It  had 
the  curiously  unsickly  smell  of  a  woodland  flower 
after  a  day's  rain  and  it  soothed  my  temples  where 
competitive  rhythms  of  pain  were  giving  a  ragtime 
performance  on  my  exposed  nerves. 


54  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

"Two  days  later  I  heard  that  he  had  been  taken 
prisoner  by  the  Germans,  and  retaken  by  the 
English.  A  month  later  he  was  safe  in  London 
and  his  mother  asked  me  to  go  and  see  him. 

"It  was  October,  1914,  and  everyone  was  fam- 
ished for  details  of  everything.  My  aunt  is  not  the 
most  tactful  of  women,  but  fortunately  she  didn't 
know  that  it  was  a  case  for  tact,  and  she  did  most 
frightfully  want  to  know  what  the  great  war  was 
like.  So  she  suggested  coming  with  me,  and  we  sal- 
lied forth  together.  I  remember  wearing  some  pink 
lilies  and  verbena  and  soothing  myself  by  looking  at 
them.  I  felt  most  frightfully  sick  and  the  beating 
of  my  heart  seemed  a  form  of  corporal  punishment. 

"We  went  into  the  room  where  he  was  sitting  (he 
had  been  badly  wounded  in  the  leg)  and  I  said: 
'I  am  so  glad' ;  and  my  aunt  said :  'It  is  splendid 
that  you  are  safe.  We  want  to  hear  all  about  it/ 

"His  face  was  very  pinched,  I  thought,  and  he  had 
a  haunted  look  in  his  eyes  as  if  he  had  seen  things 
he  couldn't  get  rid  of  even  by  telling  them. 

"But  he  answered  a  lot  of  questions  that  I  couldn't 
save  him  from.  And  all  the  time  I  felt  like  a 
violin  that  is  asked  to  play  in  tune  on  a  platform 
without  having  been  given  the  note.  It  wasn't  that 
we  had  anything  special  to  say.  One  moment  in 
the  green  room  would  have  put  us  right,  but  that 
moment  had  been  denied  us.  My  aunt  seemed  to 


CYCLAMEN  55 


become  gradually  aware  of  the  growing  constraint 
and  abruptly  she  took  her  leave  with : 

"  'You  two  will  have  things  to  say  to  one  another, 
which  did  not  make  them  any  easier  to  say.  How- 
ever, the  dilemma  did  not  last  long,  as  one  eager 
enquirer  after  the  war  succeeded  another  and,  keep- 
ing back  the  tears  which  were  massing  behind  my 
eyes,  I  surrendered  myself  to  the  humour  of  the  situ- 
ation. I  wondered  how  everything  could  go  wrong 
so  chromatically  in  such  half-tones  of  disappoint- 
ment. Laughing,  joking,  keeping  my  gnawing  sense 
of  frustration  at  bay,  I  played  up  while  he  watched 
me  with  bewildered  miserable  eyes.  'She  doesn't 
care,'  I  saw  him  think,  and  I  realised  not  for  the  first 
time  that  to  men  if  you  laugh  you  are  heartless  and 
if  you  cry  you  are  hysterical,  where  as  the  juste 
milieu  stamps  you  for  ever  as  a  woman  without 
feeling. 

'You  fool,  you  silly  fool/  I  thought  to  myself, 
and  to  him  I  said,  'You  will  come  and  see  me  soon*?' 
In  the  taxi  hot,  painful  tears  forced  themselves  re- 
vengefully through  my  eyes,  angry  at  having  been 
kept  back  so  long. 

"He  came  to  see  me,  jerky  and  ill  at  ease.  To 
find  words  for  what  he  had  to  say  was  like  trying  to 
find  overcoats  for  Kitchener's  army.  We  were 
oppressed  by  so  many  things  that  could  only  have 


56  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

been  communicated  by  wireless  and  the.  current  had 
been  broken  by  that  awful  meeting.  I  realised  with 
the  supersensitiveness  of  my  tense  nerves  that  his 
staccato  sentences  were  the  end  of  everything.  We 
made  a  lot  of  plans,  but  I  think  that  we  both  knew 
that  most  of  them  would  remain — hardly  even  en- 
gagements. When  he  was  going  I  said,  'I  am  so 
happy  that  you  are  back  safe.'  I  had,  I  realised, 
become  a  friendly  conventional  phrase,  an  eternity 
away  from  the  throbbing,  vibrant  'I  am  glad'  of 
a  few  days  before.  All  my  anguish  and  all  my  joy 
had  died. 

"A  year  later  I  walked  into  a  room  full  of  people, 
feeling  that  light-heartedness  which,  though  one 
never  remembers  it  afterwards,  is  more  like  ecstasy 
than  any  of  our  heavier  emotions ;  and  as  I  passed  a 
woman  she  pulled  out  her  handkerchief.  Waves  of 
cyclamen  seemed  breaking  over  my  head,  and  I 
fainted  dead  away  .  .  ." 

His  eyes  were  twinkling  and  he  put  his  hand 
on  hers. 

"I  love  that  chintz,"  he  said.  "We  had  it  in  our 
schoolroom;  it  reminds  me  of  buttered  toast  and 
watercress  and  eggs  for  tea." 


VII 
THE  DREAM 

THANK  you  for  all  you've  done  for  me." 
"But  I  haven't  done  anything." 

"For  being  yourself,  for  being  here.  I  feel  as  if 
all  my  tautness  had  relaxed,  as  if  my  ridiculous, 
feverish  complexities  had  evaporated  in  your  cool, 
luminous  serenity.  Being  with  you  is  like  bathing 
naked  in  a  still  pool  at  dawn." 

She  smiled  at  the  tumbling  eagerness  of  his 
phrases. 

"How  beautifully  you  put  it,"  she  said.  "How 
worth  while  you  make  my  passive  sedentary  life 
feel." 

He  thought  of  her  wonderful  sameness,  the  same- 
ness of  certainty,  not  of  monotony. 

The  filmy  mysterious  greyness  of  her  clothes,  her 
neck  encircled  with  tulle  in  summer  and  chinchilla 
in  winter,  and  pearls  dripping  out  below.  The  inso- 
lent arch  of  her  instep,  the  nervous  ripples  that  went 
through  her  long,  white,  transparent  fingers.  Her 
hair  like  some  banked-up  mass  of  deepening  shadows, 
piled  above  the  wasted  whiteness  of  her  face;  her 
eyes  sheets  of  colour-drained  grey  water  mirroring 
the  gathering  clouds;  her  quizzical,  sardonic  mouth 

57 


58  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

with  its  lovely  square  corners,  laughing  at  the  ro- 
mantic in  her  and  having  the  last  word. 

She  was  seated  on  a  grey  seat,  and  branching  out 
on  either  side  of  it  were  irises  of  every  tinge :  snow- 
white  and  red-purple,  blue-violet  and  grey-mauve, 
erect  and  self-sufficient,  aloof  and  infinitely  beauti- 
ful. She  was  wearing  a  Quaker-plain  grey  lawn 
dress  and  holding  her  grey  gardening  gloves  on  her 
lap.  In  spite  of  his  outburst  and  her  acceptance 
of  it,  she  seemed  to  him  remote  and  distant  beyond 
the  power  of  words.  "What  are  you  thinking 
about,"  she  asked. 

"I  suppose  I  was  thinking  about  you — only  I  never 
get  any  further  forward  or  any  deeper  down." 

"What  do  you  want  to  know?" 

"The  sphinx's  secret." 

"Are  you  sure  she  has  one?" 

"Quite  sure." 

She  smiled  lazily.  "What  part  of  her  secret  do 
you  want  to  know?" 

"I  want  to  know  how  you  have  reached  security; 
how  you  have  found  your  island;  how  you  are 
able  to  be  so  deliberate,  so  calm,  so  rooted  and  yet 
so  alive.  Whether  no  ultimate  loneliness  ever  tugs 
at  you;  what  battle  you  have  had  to  win  to  be  so 
complete  in  your  victory." 

"I  don't  know,"  she  said.  "Life  to  me  has  ceased 
to  be  a  fever,  a  rush,  a  noise,  a  kaleidoscope.  I  seem 


THE    DREAM 


to  have  become  a  plant,  a  very  happy  plant  with 
some  sort  of  a  flower  out  all  the  year  'round." 

"Yes,"  he  sighed.  "You  are  always  in  flower.  I 
think  of  you  as  an  iris  or  a  clematis  or  a  magnolia 
or  a  delphinium  with  a  touch  of  all  the  lilies  in  the 
world,  but  not  quite  like  any  special  one." 

But  her  thoughts  were  far  away  from  him.  She 
thought  of  her  husband  who  had  kissed  her  as  if 
she  were  a  crucifix  and  treated  her  always  as  some 
infinitely  fragile  sacred  thing,  to  be  broken  by  a 
breath.  She  thought  of  the  men  who  had  loved 
her  since  his  death — if  the  reverent  devotion  she 
had  inspired  could  be  called  love — of  how  they,  too, 
had  approached  her  on  tip-toe  as  if  her  preciousness 
made  her  almost  into  an  invalid.  She  remembered 
how  people  said  they  were  frightened  of  her.  She 
was  a  "great  lady,"  of  a  sort  that  had  been  sup- 
pressed by  progress  and  machinery  and  competition 
and  she  wondered  what  it  would  be  like  to  be  loved 
passionately  with  an  animal  passion.  In  her  bodily 
loneliness  she  cried  out  for  roughness,  for  a  primitive 
sensual  disregard  of  her  feelings.  She  wanted  to 
be  "a"  woman  to  "a"  man;  to  be  mastered  and  per- 
haps crushed.  She  imagined  herself  being  swept  off 
her  feet  into  some  fleeting  monstrous  adventure.  She 
wanted  to  see  it  in  all  its  warm-coloured  squalor. 
The  great,  big  hectoring  man  ordering  dinner  in  the 
bleak  station  hotel  forcing  her  to  eat  and  drink  and 


6O  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

then  ordering  her  up  to  her  bedroom  to  undress. 
She  could  see  the  bedroom.  A  great  scarlet  silk 
shade  to  the  electric  light,  a  dark  red  eiderdown,  a 
big  brass  bed  and  huge  gilt  mirrors — the  strange 
excrescenses  of  pattern  on  the  white  quilt,  the  mus- 
tard roses  on  the  wallpaper.  She  saw  herself  un- 
dressing, a  shiver  of  apprehension  going  through  her 
and  then  she  heard  heavy  footsteps  in  the  passage, 
the  bright  end  of  a  cigar  preceded  him  into  the 
room,  followed  by  his  heavy  breathing — — 

"Ursula!" 

She  opened  her  eyes.  There  were  irises  all  'round 
her  and  the  pale  sun  was  everywhere. 

"Ursula,  you  must  know  how  much  I  love  you. 
Will  you  marry  me*?" 

His  beautifully  cut  sensitive  profile  was  bent 
over  her  two  hands.  He  kissed  them. 

She  shivered. 

"My  darling,  I  am  worrying  you;  I  am  a  brute, 
a  rough,  monstrous,  blundering  fool.  I  won't  do 
it  again.  I  swear  I  won't.  Can  you  forgive  me*?" 

"I  wonder,"  she  said  bitterly  as  she  tore  her  hands 
away. 


VIII 
THE  FAREWELL 

SHE  opened  the  door  of  his  office  in  the  tenta- 
tive way  that  was  her  substitute  for  a  knock. 
She  hated  a  sharp  rap  and  an  equally  sharp  "Come 
in,"  but  she  liked  the  little  preliminary  peep  with 
which  she  took  in  the  scene  before  she  became  a 
part  of  it.  Also  she  liked  the  slow,  expanding 
"You,"  with  which  he  greeted  her  when  he  was 
alone.  However  hurt  or  angry  he  was  with  her, 
an  automatic  reaction  of  gladness  at  the  sight  of  her 
appeared  in  his  eyes  before  he  could  control  his 
expression  into  a  suitably  distant  coldness.  To-day 
was  the  morrow  of  a  reconciliation  that  had  tired 
them  both  out  and  even  then  had  not  been  quite 
complete.  He  always  had  a  fundamentally  sore 
feeling  that  she  could  do  without  him  and  he  paid 
for  the  fact  that  she  was  a  stimulant  by  the  fact 
that  she  was  also  an  irritant.  She  vitalized  and 
accelerated  him  quite  extraordinarily  and  yet  she 
was  in  many  ways  almost  intolerably  disintegrating. 
He  held  her  responsible  both  for  his  best  work  and 
his  worst  fits  of  idleness.  She  was  tender  and  incon- 
siderate, vain  and  intellectually  honest,  never  de- 
ceiving herself,  staggeringly  truthful,  straight  with- 

61 


62  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

out  being  frank,  with  irritating  patches  of  what  he 
called  caution  and  she  called  reticence.  She  was 
cruel  and  wounding  and  hurt  and  offended  by  little 
things,  and  divinely  magnanimous  on  big  occasions. 
To  the  really  unforgivable  she  always  responded 
with  triumphant  unpettiness;  if  she  made  mountains 
out  of  molehills,  she  also  made  molehills  out  of 
mountains.  The  huge  insults  he  had  sometimes 
thrown  at  her  she  accepted  or  rejected  on  their 
merits.  They  did  not  seem  to  touch  her  vanity 
because  they  had  gone  beyond  it.  And  everything 
about  her  mattered  and  did  not  matter  because  he 
loved  her. 

She  was  sitting  at  his  table,  fingering  his  papers 
and  reading  bits  of  them  upside  down.  In  all  the 
many  scenes  she  had  had  with  him  at  that  office  she 
always  seemed  to  have  read  things  upside  down,  as 
if  this  unaccustomed  effort  soothed  her  nerves.  He 
was  sitting  on  the  table  with  his  hands  in  his  pockets 
and  his  eyes  on  the  floor. 

"I  have  come  to  say  good-bye." 

"Yes,"  he  said. 

'Tor  six  whole  months." 

"Yes." 

"Which  is  a  very  long  time." 

"Yesterday  you  said  that  it  was  a  very  short 
time." 


THE    FAREWELL  63 


"Yes,  but  to-day  is  the  eve  of  to-morrow  and 
to-morrow  I  go." 

There  was  a  pause.  He  minded  much  more  than 
she  did.  The  six  months  would  be  crowded  for 
her  with  vivid  experiences  worked  out  with  all  her 
inexhaustible  vitality  and  curiosity.  To  him  they 
would  be  void,  empty  with  the  emptiness  of  her 
absence.  Why  then  did  she  ask  for  a  verbal  pro- 
testation from  him? 

It  was  ridiculous,  it  was  intolerable.  He  said 
nothing,  resisting  the  effect  of  her  idle  hand  that 
lay  limp  and  expectant  on  the  table.  He  didn't 
even  look  at  her  but  remained  silently  intrenched 
behind  his  resolute  bitterness. 

For  weeks  she  could  do  without  him,  not  needing 
him  or  wanting  him,  while  his  heart  gave  a  great 
thump  each  time  the  telephone  bell  rang  and  his 
feverish  fingers  fumbled  through  every  pile  of  letters, 
looking  in  vain  for  one  from  her.  And  then  she 
would  come  and  think  she  could  buy  back  his  faith 
with  a  few  moments  of  her  time,  laughing  at  his 
reproaches  and  telling  him  not  to  make  love  a 
problem  of  arithmetic. 

And  always,  of  course,  he  was  at  the  mercy  of 
the  sight  and  the  sound  of  her. 

"Do  you  think  I  don't  want  to  believe?  Of 
course  I  do,  but  for  weeks  now  you  haven't  needed 


64  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

me  and  you  can't  buy  back  my  faith  with  a  few 
moments." 

"My  dear,"  she  said,  "don't  make  us  both 
wretched  with  your  absurd  arithmetic  weighing  mo- 
ments against  hours,  hours  against  days,  days  against 
weeks.  It  is  a  ridiculous  way  of  calculating." 

"I  only  long  to  be  convinced."  There  was  an 
infinite  weariness  in  his  voice. 

She  took  his  hand  and  laid  it  by  her  face  and 
murmured  caressing,  reassuring  words  while  he 
struggled  with  bitter  memories  and  still  he  was  only 
half-soothed. 

"You  are  coming  to  tea  with  me,"  she  said. 

"Perhaps  it  is  better  I  shouldn't." 

"Don't  you  want  to?" 

"I  don't  know." 

"You  will  be  sorry  to-morrow  if  you  don't." 

"I  wonder." 

"Will  you  come  if  I  want  you  to?" 

"Of  course." 

Her  hand  crept  to  his  coat  and  gave  it  a  little  tug. 

"Do  be  nice  to  me  my  last  day." 

"I  don't  know  how  to,"  he  said,  and  then  reluc- 
tantly and  firmly  he  took  her  face  in  his  hands  and 
kissed  her  with  a  sort  of  relentless  gentleness. 
After  that  another  silence  fell  between  them,  broken 
at  last  by  a  rush  of  conversation  about  nothing,  or 
rather  about  everything  but  themselves.  He  asked 


THE    FAREWELL  65 


her  what  time  her  train  left ;  what  she  meant  to  read 
on  the  journey;  whether  she  believed  in  Mother- 
sill.  She  asked  him  about  his  plans  and  prospects 
and  the  people  he  meant  to  see.  They  wanted  to 
talk  about  one  another,  but  to  have  a  respite  from 
the  pitfalls  of  their  personal  relationship. 

Feeling  a  little  cowardly  and  very  wise,  they  put 
infinite  zest  into  their  questions  and  answers,  ward- 
ing off  with  masterly  skill  the  possible  entry  of 
reality  into  the  conversation. 

And  then,  "I  must  see  Miss  Green,"  she  said. 
Miss  Green  was  his  secretary. 

"Good-bye,  Miss  Green;  I  am  going  away  to- 
morrow for  months." 

"I  had  no  idea  of  that." 

Miss  Green,  the  typewriter,  the  books,  the  files — 
all  were  so  familiar,  so  precise  and  intimate  to  her. 
She  held  Miss  Green's  hand. 

"I  shan't  disturb  you  any  longer,"  she  said,  and 
her  voice  sounded  strange  and  choked  unexpectedly. 
The  blur  in  front  of  her  eyes  condensed  into  hot 
lumpy  drops.  "I  mustn't  disgrace  myself,"  she 
thought,  but  her  final  good-bye  was  a  broken  affair. 

As  he  saw  her  downstairs,  every  bit  of  emotion 
fell  from  her,  her  eyes  were  dry,  her  voice  was  cool 
and  she  finished  her  sentences.  For  all  this  she  was 
sorry. 


66  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

"Do  you  know,"  she  said,  "I  nearly  cried  when  I 
said  good-bye  to  Miss  Green." 

"I  didn't  know  you  were  so  fond  of  Miss  Green." 

She  stroked  his  hand  a  little  and  looking  up  at 
him  with  a  smile  that  obliterated  all  bitterness: 

"Neither  did  I,"  she  said,  as  she  drove  off. 


IX 

TOUT  COMPRENDRE 

ADRIAN  ROSE  was  thirty  and  it  was  difficult 
to  imagine  that  he  had  ever  known  any  other 
age.  It  was  impossible  to  associate  him  with  the 
teens,  those  glorious,  gawky  years  of  shy  clumsy 
ecstasies  and  passionate  floundering  plunges  into  the 
unknown,  or  with  the  immature  glistening  twenties 
when  life  is  fizzing  and  bubbling  and  bursting  and 
adventure  is  chary  of  turning  into  experience.  No, 
thirty  he  had  been  born  and  however  long  he  lived 
the  ten  years  between  thirty  and  forty  were  those 
ordained  for  him  by  fate.  When  you  said  he  was 
young  you  would  always  be  referring  to  a  fact  rather 
than  to  a  quality,  and  it  was  in  this  sense  that  he 
liked  the  word  used.  He  had  a  horror  of  the  un- 
fledged. 

Adrian  Rose  was  perfectly  happy — or  perhaps 
I  should  say  perfectly  satisfied  with  life.  He  was  a 
second  son — he  preferred  to  be  a  second  son — with 
all  the  advantages  of  a  country  house  to  fall  back 
on  and  none  of  the  disadvantages  of  having  to  live 
there,  go  to  church  on  Sundays,  study  agriculture 
and  give  garden  parties. 

Also  by  saying  "My  brother  is  rather  a  Philistine 

67 


68  i  HAVE  ONLY  MYSELF  TO  BLAME 

you  know,"  he  could  deftly  hint  at  a  background  of 
breeding. 

Having  been  left  money  by  an  aunt,  he  was  able 
to  live  in  great  comfort  a  life  of  leisure,  lazy  with- 
out being  idle,  and  occupied  without  being  busy. 
He  was  interested  in  literature,  in  art,  in  music  and 
in  people,  boasting  an  ignorance  of  politics  and  an 
indifference  to  science.  Praised  as  a  most  flattering 
listener  he  was  glad  that  the  chatter  of  his  neighbour 
invariably  gave  him  time  to  frame  a  piquant  contri- 
bution to  the  conversation.  He  took  an  indefatigable 
interest  in  what  he  was  going  to  say  next.  A  man 
who  is  available  for  lunch,  has  no  wife,  is  interested 
in  everything  and  talks  well,  is  socially  invaluable. 
If  Adrian  was  never  the  first  person  to  be  asked  to  a 
meal,  and,  let  us  admit  it,  very  frequently  the  last, 
he  was  nevertheless  always  the  right  man  in  the 
right  place  and  if  not  the  life  and  soul,  at  any  rate 
the  cement  of  a  party. 

And  then  one  day  an  enthusiastic  young  lady  ex- 
claimed, "You  express  yourself  so  beautifully,  Mr. 
Rose.  Why  don't  you  write  a  book*?"  A  book1? 
The  magic  word  wrought  havoc  in  his  mind. 
Why  not,  indeed?  Those  sensitive  fastidious 
apergues  would  make  a  charming  little  volume. 
Not  on  a  very  big  scale  of  course,  but  perfect  in  its 
way,  with  a  distinct  flavour  of  its  own.  Gathering 
his  impressions  together,  he  took  his  pen  in  his  hand 


TOUT  COMPRENDRE  69 

while  he  saw  visions  of  reviews  beginning,  "A  place 
will  be  found  on  the  shelves  of  every  book  lover 
for  .  .  ." 

"From  A  Pergola"  appeared.  On  the  paper 
wrapper  the  publisher  gave  a  kindly  hint  to  review- 
ers. "These  sketches  have  the  perfection  of  exquisite 
bric-a-brac.  There  is  nothing  Anglo-Saxon  in  Mr. 
Rose's  sensitive  talent,  rather  he  reminds  us  of  our 
friends  across  the  Channel."  Later  quotations  ("A 
pleasant  little  volume" — The  Times  Literary  Sup- 
plement; "A  masterpiece  in  miniature" — Notting- 
ham Gazette)  were  inserted  and  if  some  of  them 
came  from  Books  in  Brief,  who  could  tell  that1?  A 
long  praising  notice  appeared  in  an  intellectual 
weekly;  a  great  leader  of  fashion  pronounced  "On 
Greetings"  unapproachable  in  its  genre.  "From 
A  Pergola"  became  a  topic  of  conversation  and  went 
into  three  editions. 

"Does  anyone  really  think  it  good*?"  an  inde^ 
pendent  woman  whispered  to  the  editor,  of  the 
AtTien&um.  "It  seems  to  me  like  one  of  those  shops 
of  which  one  sees  ten  in  each  street  with  some 
lingerie,  a  blouse,  a  jumper  and  a  hat  in  the  window." 

Mr.  Adrian  Rose  was  conscious  of  the  humming 
buzz  of  whispers  that  followed  an  announcement  of 
his  name.  Not  to  have  heard  of  him  simply  showed 
that  you  were  out  of  things.  It  cast  no  reflection  on 
him.  And  his  literary  success  made  him  work  again 


7O  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

at  his  charcoals.  They  were  very  powerful  and  black 
and  white,  overemphasising  the  obviously  relevant 
until  it  fell  out  of  place.  He  was  a  man  of  few 
strokes  and  many  words. 

And  then,  bringing  disorder  into  his  perfectly 
arranged  life,  dismay  into  his  beautifully  tidied 
mind,  uninvited,  unwanted,  bewildering  and  infin- 
itely upsetting,  came  love.  Passion  is  no  respecter 
of  persons.  She  hardly  seems  to  select  her  victims. 
How  many  a  would-be  Juliet  waits  in  vain  for  those 
consuming  fires  her  heart  is  longing  for,  while  they 
blaze  in  the  reluctant  hearts  of  Mr.  Adrian  Roses, 
who  only  ask  to  be  left  in  peace,  far  from  the  ridicu- 
lous and,  thank  God,  equally  far  from  the  sublime. 
Adrian  believed  in  light,  irridescent  emotions.  The 
ami  tie  amoureuse  was  always  his  objective — a 
glove,  a  fan,  a  camelia — these  were  to  him  the 
symbols  of  love.  He  imagined  himself  behaving 
with  infinite  delicacy  in  rather  difficult  situations. 
Hiding  a  bleeding  heart  beneath  a  gallant  smile  he 
withdrew  in  favour  of  his  rival,  or,  sacrificing  his 
happiness  for  hers,  he  reconciled  his  beloved  with  her 
husband.  Never  by  any  chance  was  he  left  with  a 
woman  on  his  hands — but  always  he  left  behind 
him  a  little  aching  void  which  nothing  else  could 
fill.  These  day  dreams  occupied  his  mind  so  pleas- 
antly that  he  hardly  sought  to  carry  them  into  effect. 
He  waited  confidently  for  Providence  to  cast  him 


TOUT  COMPRENDRE  Jl 

for  the  role  he  had  chosen  for  himself.  And  as  so 
frequently  happens,  Providence  played  him  false. 

Amber  Vane,  who  had  lost  her  parents  as  a  baby, 
had  been  brought  up  by  an  aunt  in  an  old  grey  house 
that  seemed  to  have  become  white  and  transparent 
with  age.  Surrounded  by  a  water-lily  laden  moat 
you  caught  two  tantalising  glimpses  of  it  from  the 
road,  and  each  time  you  believed  that  you  had  seen 
some  mirage,  a  gleaming  apparition,  the  ghost  of  a 
house. 

Millet  Court,  protected  by  the  monosyllables  of  its 
yokels  and  the  maze  of  lanes  by  which  it  was  sur- 
rounded, remained  deliciously  inviolate  in  spite  of 
repeated  efforts  to  pierce  its  privacy  by  lovers  of 
architecture  or  adventure.  Miss  Millet  did  not  be- 
lieve in  God  and  ignored  the  very  existence  of  her 
neighbours.  She  spoke  French  and  Italian,  she 
played  the  harp,  she  read  indefatigably.  The  village 
accepted  her  iron  rule  and  her  home  brewed  medi- 
cines as  they  accepted  the  seasons.  She  belonged  as 
intimately  to  them  as  the  soil  they  tilled  and  yet  in 
a  sense  she  was  awe-inspiring,  an  undoubted  ambas- 
sadress of  fate.  Two  passions  she  had,  gardening 
and  Amber.  Flowers  grew  for  her  where  they  had 
never  grown  before — by  her  love  they  pushed 
through  an  unfriendly  soil  gallantly  defeating  a 
hostile  climate.  Miss  Millet  seemed  to  have  made 
some  unholy  compact  with  nature. 


72  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

But  greater  even  than  her  passion  for  her  flowers 
was  her  passion  for  her  niece.  Not  only  had  she 
watched  Amber  grow  but  she  had  been  able  to  share 
with  her  the  store  of  knowledge  and  experience  that 
had  accumulated  in  her  memory  and  her  very  real 
love  of  the  highways  and  the  byways  of  literature. 
Time  had  been  when  Miss  Millet  had  explored  the 
highways  and  byways  of  many  worlds  and  her 
choice  of  solitude  had  not  been  a  retreat  but  a  con- 
quest. She  had  not  run  away  from  life,  she  had  in  a 
way  run  through  it  or  at  least  through  the  forms  and 
phases  of  it  that  surrounded  her.  With  Amber  left 
to  her  she  retired  to  Millet  Court  and  from  that 
day  forward  none  of  her  friends  crossed  the  thresh- 
old. "It  is  a  hard  thing,"  she  wrote,  "to  cut  out 
friendship,  but  the  form  of  existence  I  have  chosen 
would  die  were  I  not  to  perform  the  operation." 

Amber  was  brought  up  without  companions  or 
masters  or  mistresses.  But  she  was  constantly  in 
contact  with  the  courage,  the  honesty,  the  dry  wit, 
the  wide  learning,  the  warm  understanding  of  Miss 
Millet.  The  hermit  had  not  ceased  to  be  a  woman 
of  the  world,  she  had  added  another  world  to  the 
kingdoms  of  her  experience.  Her  niece,  brought  up 
in  close  touch  with  nature,  learned  the  facts  of  life 
early  and  simply.  A  cultivated  artificial  ignorance 
was  not  used  to  produce  the  bloom  of  innocence. 
She  grew  in  sun  and  shower  and  bloomed  in  beauti- 


TOUT  COMPRENDRE  73 

ful  unself-consciousness,  and  then  suddenly  when 
she  was  eighteen  her  aunt  died  and  she  was  plunged 
into  the  life  she  had  heard  of  and  read  of  and  never 
seen. 

T*  T^  *f*  *T*  *|*  *f*  *J* 

"May  I  introduce  you  to  my  cousin — Miss  Vane? 
Mr.  Rose — Mr.  Adrian  Rose."  She  knew  her  cousin 
well  enough  to  know  that  the  Christian  name  added 
so  ostentatiously  was  a  certificate  of  fame.  But 
"From  A  Pergola"  had  not  reached  Millet  Court  and 
the  "Adrian"  only  left  her  consciously  ignorant. 
"My  cousin,"  added  Lady  Blair,  "has  been  brought 
up  entirely  in  the  country  in  the  most  divine  old 
house  that  now  belongs  to  her.  She  has  come  to 
London  to  explore  the  world." 

He  looked  at  her.  She  was  smiling  a  little  and 
it  struck  him  that  she  knew  more  than  Lady  Blair 
would  ever  know. 

"You  seem,  if  I  may  say  so,"  he  said,  "to  be  start- 
ing your  adventure  very  calmly.  But  you  are  quite 
right,  the  people  who  have  train  fever  spend  much 
too  much  time  in  stations." 

He  always  tried  to  remember  afterwards  exactly 
what  he  had  thought  of  her  that  day.  But  his  first 
impression  had  got  inextricably  entangled  with  other 
later  ones  and  he  could  never  get  it  free. 

He  knew  when  he  was  with  her  that  she  was  tall 
and  slim  and  white,  with  pale  coral  lips  and  a  cloudy 


74  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

background  of  hair.  The  whole  of  her  seemed 
pencilled  in,  a  delicate  faint  unfussy  outline.  But 
when  he  left  her  he  could  never  conjure  her  up  in 
detail,  for  her  eyes  which  should  have  provided  a 
clue,  a  vivid  mark  in  his  memory,  lamentably  failed 
to  do  either.  It  was  difficult  to  say  why  they  were 
unlike  other  eyes  in  their  deep  unbroken  grey  on  a 
blue-white  ground,  but  somehow  they  seemed  not 
to  reveal  but  to  conceal  her  soul,  like  some  heavy 
curtain  drawn  across  her  individuality.  Sometimes 
he  felt  that  he  had  caught  a  glimpse  of  something — 
that  the  curtain  had  been  drawn  aside  for  a  second- 
but  always  it  fell  back  into  place  before  he  could 
make  sure. 

When  he  had  been  with  her  he  emerged  renewed, 
vital,  vivid,  faith  aflame  and  doubt  in  ashes.  If 
there  was  a  damp  dark  note  somewhere  deep  down 
within  him,  she  convinced  him  that  it  was  only  a 
necessary  place  in  which  to  grow  the  lilies  of  the 
valley  of  his  fancy — that  fragile  sort  with  trans- 
parent primrose  leaves.  And  when  he  was  with  her 
his  conversation  glowed  and  glittered,  his  gift  of  ex- 
pression becoming  almost  tropical.  It  was  as  if  her 
company  were  some  wonderful  chemical  that  gave 
a  new  brightness  to  all  his  colours. 

But  after  he  had  left  her  he  could  never  remem- 
ber what  she  had  said. 

Gradually  she  obsessed  him  and  he  became  a  man 


TOUT  COMPRENDRE  75 

of  one  idea,  a  thousand  hoping  doubts  and  a  thou- 
sand doubting  hopes — in  fact  a  man  in  love. 

When  he  was  with  her  now  he  stammered.  He 
was  miserable,  angry,  impotent.  It  was  his  first  con- 
tact with  life,  and  he  didn't  know  that  a  stammer 
is  the  divine  eloquence  of  love. 

But  she  did.  She  had  been  born  knowing  every- 
thing, and  she  had  not  yet  had  time  to  forget  it  all. 
She  was  only  nineteen. 

One  day  they  were  walking  through  a  bluebell 
wood,  waves  of  unbelievable  blue  breaking  all  round 
them,  the  sky  playing  peep-bo  with  the  trees.  "I 
must  speak,"  he  said  to  himself  unhappily,  while  he 
realised  that  he  was  physically  incapable  of  bring- 
ing out  the  most  commonplace  phrase.  He  won- 
dered how  people  forced  the  words  they  wanted  out 
of  their  mouths.  He  thought  it  must  be  a  marvellous 
gift. 

She  was  dressed  in  pale  lavender,  a  lavender  para- 
sol above  her  head,  the  sun  catching  in  her  hair.  Her 
face  was  in  blue  shadow  and  she  seemed  infinitely 
remote. 

He  thought  what  a  ridiculously  unsuitable  name 
"Amber"  was.  .  .  . 

He  decided  to  speak  when  he  saw  the  next  orchis. 

He  thought  of  a  woman  he  had  once  imagined 
himself  in  love  with.  She  had  had  red  hair  and 
green  eyes — flames  and  emeralds  he  had  called  them 


76  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

then — that  had  been  when  he  was  very  young  and 
red  hair  had  seemed  infinitely  wicked  and  alluring 
and  adventurous.  .  .  . 

He  saw  an  orchis  and  hastily  averted  his  eyes. 

He  thought  of  a  rocking  horse  he  had  had  as  a 
child,  dappled  grey  with  a  grey  yellow  tail  and  a 
scarlet  saddle.  .  .  . 

Another  orchis.     He  looked  at  her  imploringly. 

"What  are  you  thinking  about*?"  she  responded 
to  his  appeal. 

"Rocking  horses,"  he  said.  "Will  you  marry 
me?"  And  then  desperately,  "I  know  that's  not  the 
way  to  put  it,"  and  then  convulsively,  "I  love  you." 

His  hands  were  behind  his  back  and  he  did  not 
know  how  to  get  hold  of  them. 

She  waited  till  he  had  finished  and  then  she  said 
in  her  low,  thrilling  voice,  "That's  a  very  nice  way 
to  put  it." 

And  suddenly  released  from  the  iron  bondage  of 
fear  and  self-consciousness  he  took  her  in  his  arms. 

They  had  come  back  from  their  honeymoon  to  a 
little  grey  house  in  Westminster  with  a  wooden 
staircase  jumping  out  of  the  middle  of  the  hall, 
an  octagonal  book-lined  room  with  huge  armchairs 
and  an  immense  sofa  for  him,  and  a  long  empty 
window-studded  room  for  her,  all  shiny  parquet  and 
shiny  deep  cream  paint  and  creamy  lacquer  and 
creamy  curtains  and  touches  of  primrose  and  flame. 


TOUT  COMPRENDRE 


Upstairs  there  was  a  studio  for  him  to  draw  in.  He 
had  thought,  "I  don't  know  where  I  shall  draw. 
Can't  draw  and  write  in  the  same  room — two  things 
too  different-"  And  she  had  said,  "You  can't  write 
in  a  studio  or  draw  in  a  study.  One  thing  would 
interfere  with  the  other  and  both  would  be  spoilt." 

"My  beloved,"  he  had  answered,  "you  know 
the  innermost  recesses  of  my  thoughts." 

Fortunately  he  had  ceased  to  wonder  about  hers. 

Their  honeymoon  had  been  perfect  but  in  spite  of 
her  intimate  understanding  of  him,  he  had  sometimes 
felt  little  twinges  of  doubt  as  to  his  knowledge  of  her. 
They  vanished  almost  immediately,  but  one  endur- 
ing image  remained.  It  was  his  marriage  night. 
Drowned  almost  in  the  flood  of  his  passion  he  had 
caught  a  glimpse  of  her  before  he  went  under.  She 
didn't  look  disgusted  or  frightened  or  shocked  but 
cool  and  untouched  and  aloof  as  if  she  were  not 
implicated  in  this  experience  but  were  watching  it 
from  far  away.  Physical  intimacy  did  not  seem  to 
reach  her  remoteness.  But  when  he  was  telling  her 
all  about  himself,  his  slightest  reactions  to  the  slight- 
est experiences,  the  tiniest  little  details  of  his  intri- 
cate psychological  peculiarities,  then  her  absorbed 
interest  wiped  out  all  tiresome  impressions.  The 
infectious  gurgle  of  her  laugh  reassured  him  com- 
pletely. 

They  settled  down  to  life — a  smooth,  beautifully 


78  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

run  life.  There  were  days  when  the  perfection  of 
his  household  surprised  him  and  days  when  he  took 
it  for  granted.  It  was  winter  and  the  house  was 
full  of  leafless  white  lilac  from  Holland,  and  Poin- 
settias,  arum  lilies,  violets  and  gardenias  from  Mil- 
let. The  flames  in  the  open  fireplaces,  the  Paul 
Veronese  heaps  of  fruit  on  the  table,  the  Queen  Anne 
silver,  the  Waterford  glass,  the  white  Wedgewood 
china,  the  old  family  cook,  her  niece  the  stillroom 
maid,  the  old  family  recipes,  all  combined  to  achieve 
the  perfection  of  old  fashioned  country  house  com- 
fort. 

Adrian  had  never  seen  Millet.  Amber  had  un- 
accountably— unaccountably  to  him  —  refused  to 
take  him  there,  if  the  delicate  unanswerable  reasons 
connected  with  his  comfort  which  she  produced  could 
be  called  a  refusal.  Of  course  the  country  was  very 
cold  in  winter.  He  tried  to  remember  what  she  had 
said  in  the  summer  while  they  were  engaged,  but  he 
couldn't.  However,  he  soon  forgot  all  about  it, 
and  from  time  to  time  she  slipped  off  alone,  having 
first  arranged  the  most  perfect  plans  for  him,  a  very 
small  and  recondite  man's  dinner  or  a  tete-a-tete 
evening  with  an  irresistible  incomprise. 

He  wondered  how  she  had  discovered  that  the 
incomprise  was  longing  to  pour  out  her  heart  to  him. 
She  was  always  leaving  him  alone  with  women  who 
wanted  to  confide  in  him.  His  friendship  was,  they 


TOUT  COMPRENDRE  79 

explained  (he  could  wish  they  didn't  always  use  the 
same  words),  the  one  bright  spot  in  their  drab  lives. 
He  found  himself  looking  at  the  diamonds  that 
trickled  all  over  one  of  these  poor  victims. 

"You  wear  your  chains,"  he  said.  What  a  de- 
lightful fancy !  He  made  a  note  of  it.  "Bound  by 
jewels,"  sounded  poetic  if  you  caught  the  right 
aspect  but  it  might  have  rather  a  cinema  ring.  He 
must  ask  Amber.  ; 

"Doesn't  your  wife  mind?"  asked  one  of  the 
distressed  ones  hopefully,  "my  having  you  like  this 
all  to  myself?" 

Amber  had  said  she  mustn't  be  selfish.  He  was  a 
writer.  He  must  have  experience.  It  struck  him 
suddenly  that  she  ought  to  be  jealous — just  a  little 
tiny  bit  jealous — it  would  be  only  natural,  only 
right. 

That  night,  as  if  in  response  to  his  unformulated 
grievance,  she  murmured,  "Perhaps  I  am  not  quite  so 
strong-minded  as  I  thought  I  was—  Perhaps  after 
all.  ..."  He  was  enchanted. 

His  marriage  really  was  a  success. 

The  next  evening  at  dinner  Amber  deftly  led  the 
conversation  to  the  subject  of  Mrs.  R ,  her  hus- 
band, her  discontent,  her  jewels. 

"She  wears  her  chainst"  said  Adrian. 

It  had  a  great  success. 


80  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

"It  is  better  thus,"  he  thought.  "An  epigram 
should  never  be  diffused  into  a  sketch." 

"Under  A  Shady  Tree." 

More  musings  by  the  author  of  "From  A  Per- 
gola," appeared  in  April. 

"We  notice  a  new  note — a  deeper,  a  more  human 
note — in  the  work  of  Mr.  Adrian  Rose.  There  is  a 
throbbing  pulse  of  life  in  'Under  A  Shady  Tree,' 
which  was  lacking  in  'From  A  Pergola.' ' 

Adrian  was  enchanted  about  the  "throbbing 
pulse."  He  began  to  think  of  writing  a  novel  or 
even  a  play.  Amber  thought  that  some  short  stories 
might  exploit  the  "human  note"  without  losing  the 
whimsical  delicacy  of  his  ordinary  genre. 

In  the  meantime  he  began  to  think  of  going  back 
to  his  drawing.  For  some  reason  or  other  he  didn't 
discuss  this  with  Amber.  He  toyed  with  the  idea 
alone,  happy  and  a  little  guilty  with  his  secret 
plans.  Perhaps  it  might  even  end  in  a  little  show. 

And  then  one  day  Amber  said,  "Don't  you  think 
it  would  be  a  nice  change  if  you  took  up  your  char- 
coals again?  We  might  even  organise  a  little  ex- 
hibition"?" 

He  looked  at  her,  horrified,  why  he  couldn't  tell. 

"Are  you  a  thought-reader*?" 

She  smiled,  "Not  that  I  know  of." 

"Well,  I  don't  mind  telling  you  that  there  are 
times  when  a  man  likes  to  make  his  own  plans." 


TOUT  COMPRENDRE  8l 

"But  of  course,  darling,  I  quite  understand." 

"Understand?  You  make  a  positive  business  of 
it.  The  understood  never  seem  to  be  asked  whether 
they  forgive.  Great  fun  being  the  patron  and  all 
that  but  what  about  the  victim?"  And  he  rushed 
out  of  the  room. 

After  that  he  watched  her  suspiciously.  He  be- 
came obsessed  by  the  thought  that  he  had  no  con- 
trol over  what  he  was  doing.  What  was  the  new 
"human  note,"  the  "throbbing  pulse"  ?  It  was  Amber. 
His  book  was  a  mere  hollow  farce,  her  personality 
shining  through  his  words.  His  words?  Perhaps 
they  were  her  words!  Every  day  he  became  more 
wretched.  If  it  looked  like  rain  and  he  picked  up 
his  umbrella  in  the  hall  he  felt  she  had  put  it  there 
meaning  him  to  take  it.  When  he  started  a  daring 
or  original  topic  of  conversation  and  saw  her  smiling 
at  him,  he  felt  it  had  come  from  her. 

He  took  to  examining  her,  watching  her,  and  he 
realised  bitterly  how  little  he  knew  her.  She  never 
talked  about  herself  and  like  a  detective  he  tried  to 
catch  her  in  some  unconscious  lapse  into  self-revela- 
tion. 

And  always  he  was  fighting  her,  trying  to  free 
himself  of  her.  Meanwhile,  life  went  on.  His  char- 
coals were  hung  in  the  best  light,  the  conversation 
was  manoeuvred  up  to  the  epigram — his  epigram. 

On  his  mother's  birthday  an  immense  bunch  of 


82  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

lilies  of  the  valley — her  favourite  flower — lay  on 
the  breakfast  table.  He  had  meant  to  order  them 
but  he  had  forgotten. 

"What  are  those  for*?"  he  asked  sulkily. 

"For  your  mother." 

"Why  don't  you  send  them  to  her?" 

"Because  they  are  from  you,  darling.  I'm  going 
to  send  her  something  else." 

"What  the  devil  do  you  mean  by  ordering  my 
present  to  my  mother?" 

"But  you  always  give  her  lilies  of  the  valley. 
They  are  her  favourite  flower  and  she  loves  them, 
specially  when  they  come  from  you." 

"I  like  ordering  my  own  lilies." 

"But  you  had  forgotten  them,  hadn't  you*?" 

"Oh  for  goodness  sake  don't  argue.  I'm  sick  of 
being  forestalled  at  every  turn." 

His  mother  loved  the  flowers — loved  him  for  hav- 
ing thought  of  them — loved  him  for  having  re- 
membered her  birthday  in  time  to  order  them  the 
day  before,  so  that  she  should  have  them  quite 
early  in  the  morning. 

Amber's  present  didn't  come  till  next  day.  Lady 
Rose  loved  her  and  realised  that  she  couldn't  be 
expected  to  remember  her  mother-in-law's  birthday 
till  it  arrived,  when  Adrian  had  brought  her  round 
to  wish  his  mother  many  happy  returns  of  the  day. 
The  whole  incident  made  him  furious. 


TOUT  COMPRENDRE  83 


The  silent  battle  between  husband  and  wife  con- 
tinued. He  became  daily  more  unstrung  and  she 
seemed  daily  more  unconscious. 

"Under  A  Shady  Tree"  had  had  a  great  success 
and  he  was  invited  to  be  the  guest  of  honour  at  a 
literary  dining  club  with  speeches  after  dinner. 
Adrian  loved  an  after  dinner  speech.  The  atmos- 
phere of  dessert  and  port  and  cigar  smoke,  the  mix- 
ture of  muzzy  geniality  and  exuberant  wit  delighted 
him. 

Amber  chose  the  night  in  question  to  go  down  to 
Millet.  She  bade  a  tender  farewell  to  her  husband 
and  he  sallied  forth  exhilarated  by  his  independence 
and  the  prospect  of  an  excellent  dinner  in  excellent 
company.  The  evening  was  a  great  success  and  his 
speech  a  positive  triumph  but  as  he  walked  home  and 
tried  to  remember  what  he  had  said  phrases  of 
Amber's  stuck  out  in  his  mind  till  he  couldn't  be 
sure  whether  he  had  used  them  or  not.  All  night 
long  they  ran  through  his  dreams  like  a  semi-con- 
sciously  hummed  tune  till  he  forced  himself  to  wake 
up — only  to  find  them  as  persistently  haunting  his 

thoughts. 

Finally  unable  to  bear  it  any  longer  he  got  up 
dashed  into  his  clothes,  examined  Bradshaw,  rushed 
to  the  station  and  caught  the  train  to  Millet. 

There  he  found  an  old  brougham  drawn  by  a 
single  decrepit  old  white  horse  with  an  even  older 


84  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

coachman  on  the  box.  "Mr.  Rose,  sir*?"  he  en- 
quired, "This  is  the  Millet  Court  carriage;  one 
of  the  carriages,"  he  added  with  pride.  "Miss  Amber, 
Mrs.  Rose  that  is,  begging  your  pardon  Sir,  said 
but  what  you  might  be  coming  this  morning." 

His  thoughts  were  in  a  whirl.  He  didn't  notice 
the  box  hedges,  the  blaze  of  tulips,  the  transparent 
house.  His  face  was  white  and  set,  he  strode  through 
the  garden  gate  unseeing  and  unswerving  straight 
to  where  his  wife  sat  on  a  stone  seat. 

"How  did  you  know  I  was  coming1?"  his  voice  was 
strained. 

She  smiled.    "I  kind  of  felt  you  would." 

"Why?" 

"Well  there  are  things  you  have  wanted  to  say 
to  me  for  a  long  time,  aren't  there*?" 

Resolutely  he  ignored  this  final  touch  in  the  night- 
mare. "Yes,"  he  said,  "there  are  things  I  want  to 
say  to  you.  I  want  to  tell  you  that  you  have  ruined 
my  life.  You  with  your  understanding,  you  have 
cut  me  off  from  the  unexpected.  You  have  covered 
up  this  and  exploited  that,  you  have  manoeuvred  my 
deficiencies,  you  have  forestalled  my  impulses.  I 
haven't  been  able  to  think  or  feel  or  act  for  myself. 
I  have  ceased  to  exist  as  an  independent  person. 
I  am  your  creation,  your  puppet.  God  has  never 
had  to  forgive  for  He  has  never  been  understood." 
He  stopped  breathless  and  then  for  a  moment  every- 


TOUT  COMPRENDRE  85 

thing  was  blotted  out  by  his  vision  of  her  as  she  stood 
there,  a  lavender  parasol  over  her  head,  her  face  in 
blue  shadow,  the  sun  catching  in  her  hair.  And  all 
around  her  he  seemed  to  see  wave  after  wave  of 
bluebells — And  then  he  heard  her  low  thrilling 
voice. 

"My  dear,"  she  said,  "forgive  me — I — I  so  under- 
stand." 


X 

THREE  LOVE  LETTERS 

A  LETTER   11   A.  M. 

THERE  is  such  a  lot  of  sunshine  in  my  room 
and  clouds  of  rainbow  dust.    When  my  maid 
pulled  the  curtains  I  felt  a  rush  of  light  and  my  eye- 
lids became  warm  and  transparent  and  I  felt  ridicu- 
lously happy — as  happy  as  a  cat  on  a  doorstep. 

I  forced  myself  not  to  say  "Are  there  any  letters" 
because  I  wanted  to  prolong  the  expectation.  Do  you 
remember  when  I  was  ill  and  you  came  to  see  me, 
I  never  said  "Come  in"  at  once  when  you  knocked, 
because  I  loved  to  imagine  your  face  and  just  how 
you  would  tiptoe  into  the  room  and  to  think  of  you 
coming  nearer  and  nearer  to  me  and  reaching  the 
bed  and  bending  over  me  and — no — I  mustn't  make 
myself  want  to  be  ill  again.  Surely  it  must  make 
life  longer  and  joy  more  lasting  if  you  can  live 
through  some  moments  three  times'?  To  return  to 
this  morning,  I  made  such  a  weak  silly  compromise. 
I  said  "Have  the  papers  come,"  and  my  maid  went 
to  look  and  brought  them  with  a  whole  pile  of  letters 
which  1  let  run  through  my  fingers  like  sand.  I  toyed 
with  them  and  felt  the  shapes  of  the  envelopes  and 

86 


THREE    LOVE    LETTERS  87 

the  texture  of  the  paper  and  my  fingers  trembled  a 
little  and  I  smiled.  Then  I  read  them  very  slowly, 
luxuriating  in  the  details  of  an  advertisement,  care- 
fully examining  each  item  in  every  bill,  deliberately 
concentrating  my  mind  on  Aunt  May's  inventory  of 
domestic  disasters  (why  is  she  a  perfect  fly-paper 
for  illnesses,  misfortunes,  accidents  and  quarrels'?), 
in  order  to  give  myself  time  to  stretch  the  golden 
moment  of  looking  forward.  At  last  my  heart  was 
beating  so  fast  that  I  could  bear  it  no  longer  and  I 
opened  your  letter.  .  .  . 

I  love  to  see  my  name  in  your  writing.  I  love  to 
hear  my  name  when  you  say  it.  It  is  a  caress  in 
itself,  it  means  so  much  more  than  any  term  of  en- 
dearment because  it  belongs  so  essentially  to  you  and 
to  me.  I  knew  you  were  cross  yesterday  and  ridicu- 
lously annoyed  at  our  never  being  left  alone.  You 
ought  to  cultivate  my  plan  of  loving  things  in 
suspension.  When  I  went  up  to  you  and  said  "Good- 
bye" and  shook  hands  with  you  I  felt  that  we  had 
reached  the  apex  of  an  intimacy.  Surely  you  heard 
all  the  whispers  in  the  world  in  my  "Good-bye." 
Surely  you  felt  the  absolute  surrender  in  my  hand 
shake4? 

Isn't  that  what  love  means,  to  fill  ordinary  com- 
monplace conventional  things  with  magic  and  signifi- 
cance, not  to  need  the  moon  and  white  scent-heavy 
flowers  at  night? 


00  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

In  a  way  I  don't  see  why  you  should  ever  want 
to  kiss  me  again.  Do  you  understand  what  I  mean, 
that  I  feel  so  merged,  so  eternally  in  your  arms  that 

1  can  hardly  believe  in  the  process  of  being  taken 
into  them  again  and  again.     Oh  my  dear,  do  you 
notice  how  one  never  can  use  superlatives  when  they 
really  would  mean  something"?    They  seem  to  slink 
away  ashamed  of  their  loose  lives.     After  all  we 
can't  "make  love"  to  one  another.    We  both  do  it  too 
well.  This  is  not  an  incident,  a  game,  an  art;  ours  is 
not  a  love  affair,  it  is  life.    So  you  must  never  again 
be  cross  when  we  are  in  a  room  full  of  people  and 
I  shake  hands  with  you  and  say  "good-bye."     Of 
course  I  am  not  true  to  my  creed.     Thank  God. 
Otherwise,  if  I  pushed  it  to  a  logical  conclusion  I 
should  say  that  it  didn't  really  matter  if  we  never 
met.    Whereas,  well — you  know  that  I  who  loathe 
railways  always  travel  by  train  now,  simply  because 
if  I  go  away  from  you  by  motor  I  can't  bring  myself 
to  start.     I  am  always  passing  some  miraculous  blue- 
bell wood  or  an  orchard  in  bloom  or  a  Persian  cat 
or  a  black  purple  lilac  bush  that — though  I  send 
them  straight  to  you — I  long  to  share  with  you  on 
the  spot. 

Then,  too,  I  get  frightened.  I  believe  that  every 
motor  bus  is  aiming  at  you,  and  I  get  a  little  jealous 
— of  men.  I  like  you  to  see  women,  lots  of  women — 
each  one  will  remind  you  of  me,  will  rub  me  in, 


THREE    LOVE    LETTERS  89 

will  widen  the  gap  of  my  absence.  Have  you  made 
me  the  vainest  woman  in  the  world?  Would  I 
deserve  to  be  loved  by  you  if  I  weren't?  God  bless 
you,  my  Precious. 

II 

12:30    P.    M. 

It  has  been  such  a  long  day!  So  hot  that  the 
air  seemed  solid.  So  glaring  that  the  sun  seemed 
all  round  one.  I  got  up  at  12  in  order  to  be  sure  that 
everyone  had  dispersed.  There  is  always  the  risk 
of  finding  someone  reading  or  writing,  so  I  went 
straight  into  the  garden.  I  don't  yet  know  who  is 
staying  here.  There  seem  to  me  to  be  so  many 
people  that  my  only  hope — or  fear — is  that  I  may 
know  some  of  them  by  sight  before  I  go. 

This  morning  some  had  gone  to  church,  some  were 
on  the  river;  some  played  lawn  tennis.  I  sauntered 
happily  along  wondering  what  it  would  feel  like  if 
you  were  suddenly  to  appear,  imagining  the  little 
stab  of  surprise  and  ecstasy  with  which  I  would 
realise  that  it  was  really  you,  and,  lo  and  behold, 
Richard  wandering  aimlessly  in  quest  of  someone 
to  make  love  to.  I  thought  it  unlike  him  to  be  so 
improvident  as  to  leave  the  lady  to  chance,  so  I 
hastily  hid  behind  a  red  hot  poker  and  escaped  out 


9O  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

of  the  walled  garden  only  to  run  straight  into 
Charles'  arms. 

"At  last  I  have  found  you,"  he  exclaimed,  which 
was  civil  if  untrue,  and  I  said  "Let's  go  and  watch 
the  lawn-tennis,"  because  it  seemed  an  impersonal 
occupation.  What  an  idiotic  thing  to  say !  Every- 
thing is  impersonal  when  you  are  not  there.  It  is 
only  you  who  make  anything  personal,  who  make 
everything  personal. 

At  lunch  we  were  reinforced  by  an  Ambassador, 
who  had  motored  down  from  London,  and  the 
Bishop,  who  had  preached  in  the  morning.  They 
boomed,  one  on  either  side  of  our  hostess,  in  perfect 
contentment,  thoroughly  enjoying  themselves.  What 
an  admirably  true  and  expressive  phrase  taken 
literally ! 

My  neighbour  praised  you  to  me  and  I  was  modest 
and  deprecating  as  if  he  had  been  praising  me. 
Afterwards  this  struck  me  as  rather  ridiculous  and 
very  sublime.  He  asked  me  if  you  weren't  a  friend* 
of  mine"?  I  suppose  I  looked  amazed  but  then  I 
realised  that  perhaps  you  are  a  friend  of  mine.  I 
had  never  thought  of  it  before.  The  right  thing  to 
say  would  be  "You  are  my  best  friend,"  but  I  don't 
feel  that  a  bit.  I  don't  feel  that  we  are  sufficiently 
separate  and  independent.  You  are  a  part  of  me 
and  if  you  weren't  that  you  would  be  nothirig — 
nothing  at  all.  It  is  awful  to  think  that  there  are 


THREE    LOVE    LETTERS 


hundreds  and  thousands  of  people  to-day  who  are 
going  about  with  their  hearts  or  souls  amputated. 

The  Bishop  is  very  much  a  man  of  the  world  — 
this  world.  I  think  he  will  feel  rather  lost  in  the 
next,  only  his  psychological  bump  of  locality  is  so 
good  that  it  will  probably  take  him  home  anywhere. 
The  Ambassador  is  a  Christian  —  in  the  true  sense  of 
the  word.  It  was  entertaining  to  see  them  together. 

All  the  afternoon  I  played  tennis  and  after  tea  I 
came  up  to  rest  because  I  wanted  to  be  all  alone  with 
you  in  the  scented  dusk.  I  am  all  alone  with  you 
always,  my  beloved.  But  sometimes  I  want  to  purge 
the  surface  of  life  —  to  empty  the  passages  and  the 
ante-rooms.  I  want  not  only  not  to  see  or  hear,  but 
not  to  be  seen  or  be  heard,  so  that  even  the  physical 
impression  of  me  is  yours  alone.  It  is  awful  to  have 
a  surface  that  one  can't  withdraw. 

Uncle  Will  asked  where  I  had  been  all  day.  I 
told  him.  He  said  "Not  your  arms  and  legs  but 
your  self.  Your  thoughts.",  I  explained  to  him  that 
I  had  come  round  to  his  view  of  life,  that  I  was  tired 
of  pomps  and  vanities  and  that  henceforth  I  was 
going  to  adopt  the  geological  attitude  towards  the 
world. 

He  laughed  and  shook  his  head. 

What  are  you  doing  at  this  very  moment  my  be- 
loved? My  sheets  are  like  cool  shiny  pocket  hand- 
kerchiefs, there  is  a  white  fur  rug  on  the  ground  by 


92  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

my  bed.  On  the  chair  is  my  white  velvet  dress  that 
you  love.  It  looks  like  a  lovely  spilt  silver  liquid 
in  the  moonlight.  The  smell  of  the  jasmine  round 
my  window  is  overpowering,  my  quilt  has  entangled 
a  moonbeam  sent  me  by  you.  I  send  it  back  because 
the  only  things  that  belong  to  me  are  those  that  I 
have  given  you.  My  own. 


in 

2   A.    M. 

I  can't  sleep.  There  is  something  oppressive 
in  the  atmosphere.  I  feel  sick  and  giddy  and  my 
heart  is  so  assertive,  beating  noisily  and  revenge- 
fully as  if  it  bore  me  a  grudge.  I  feel  as  if  I  were 
in  the  wings  just  waiting  for  my  cue,  nervous  and 
miserable.  There  is  always  a  tenseness  when  you 
are  not  there,  a  cumulative  unreality.  I  have  felt 
it  all  day  and  it  has  worked  me  up  to  fever  pitch. 
I  seemed  to  be  a  ghost  wandering  about  in  some 
meaningless  void.  It  was  not  only  that,  I  couldn't 
believe  in  the  people,  I  could  not  even  believe  in 
the  chairs  and  tables,  it  was  tiring.  You  know 
how  in  fairy  tales  the  lovely  Princess  is  turned  into 
a  toad  and  has  to  wait  for  a  kiss  to  release  her,  that 
was  what  I  felt  like — that  nothing  but  your  touch 
could  make  me  into  a  human-being  again. 


THREE    LOVE    LETTERS  93 

After  lunch  a  serious  young  man  asserted  mourn- 
fully, "You  are  very  beautiful,"  and  then  as  I 
hesitated  between  the  equally  coquettish  courses  of 
acceptance  or  rejection  he  added,  "You  are  not 
happy."  This,  I  indignantly  repudiated  but  he 
brushed  my  protestations  aside  and  looking  particu- 
larly gloomy  and  oracular  he  stated,  "You  may  not 
know,  but  I  do,  you  lovely  frail  thing." 

Tell  me,  did  people  always  talk  like  that4?  I 
can't  remember.  Ever  since  I  have  known  you 
reality  has  blazed  at  me  and  all  my  old  life  seems  so 
hazy  and  shadowy — I  have  cast  off  my  old  self  like 
a  winter  skin  and  people  think  I  am  the  same  person 
and  talk  to  me  on  that  assumption,  which  makes  me 
feel  a  bewildered  stranger.  I  am  not  of  course  think- 
ing of  the  young  man  who  was  obviously  working 
on  some  theory  about  women — a  sort  of  roulette 
system. 

Darling  Heart,  I  feel  a  little  calmer  when  I  am 
writing  to  you.  I  want  to  go  to  sleep  so  that  my 
dreams  may  bring  me  a  little  reality. 

God  bless  you. 


XI 

THE  SUCCESSOR 

NEARLY  every  afternoon  Rosemary  and  Mrs. 
Dearborn  drove  out  together  in  a  fly,  making 
a  leisurely  escape  from  the  garish,  rhetorical  scenery 
of  the  coast  where  the  crimson  rocks  and  sapphire 
sea  seem  to  have  caught  God  in  a  poster  mood.  As 
they  got  away  from  the  face  it  shows  to  the  world, 
the  countryside  assumed  a  more  relaxed  and  loving 
expression,  the  hills  were  at  once  more  intimate  and 
more  remote,  the  sky  was  unfaithful  to  the  adver- 
tisements and  became  paler,  more  transparent,  more 
lovely.  They  drove  through  nestling,  crouching  vil- 
lages, drinking  in  with  their  eyes  the  silvery  olives 
on  their  carpet  of  emerald  jade,  the  fuzzy,  outline- 
less  almond  trees  posturing  against  the  sky — so  many 
pink  smudges  on  the  unbroken  blue. 

Both  ladies  had  been  ill,  but  Rosemary,  though 
pale  and  thin  and  easily  tired,  was  alive  and  radiant 
and  easily  revived — on  the  brink  of  life,  on  the 
threshold  of  adventure,  ready  to  accept  all  chal- 
lenges, laugh  at  all  setbacks,  take  every  risk  and — 
She  hadn't  got  any  further  than  that,  for  she  didn't 
want  to  settle  down  for  a  long  time  yet  to  that  happi- 
ness which  was  of  course  waiting  for  her. 

94 


THE    SUCCESSOR 


Mrs.  Dearborn  was  making  a  slow,  painful  recov- 
ery, punctuated  by  relapses.  She  looked  frail  and 
faded  and  a  little  frayed — like  some  old  brocade, 
made  rare  and  precious  and  lovely  by  time  and  wear. 
It  was  not  so  much  that  she  was  old  as  that  she  was 
so  essentially  not  new. 

She  loved  being  with  Rosemary,  who  in  exchange 
for  experience  brought  her  forgetfulness — thus  be- 
longing to  the  blessed  who  give  more  than  they  re- 
ceive. 

Rosemary  had  the  vital,  militant  curiosity  of 
youth.  She  believed  in  leading  questions ;  they  were 
frank,  they  were  flattering,  and,  she  maintained, 
they  were  tactful.  In  asking  them  you  laid  yourself 
open  to  being  laughed  at,  being  snubbed  or  being 
answered.  Surely  that  was  fairer  than  the  circuit- 
ous trap-laden  zigzag  by  which,  observing  the  dic- 
tates of  delicacy,  your  friends  attempted  to  trip  you 
up  into  a  confidence. 

They  drove  this  afternoon  for  some  time  in 
silence,  and  then  abruptly  Rosemary  said,  "Tell  me 
what  your  husband  is  like?"  She  knew  that  Mrs. 
Dearborn  wasn't  happy,  and  to  her  unhappiness 
meant  an  unhappy  marriage,  and  an  unhappy  mar- 
riage must  be  either  the  wife's  fault  or  the  husband's. 
In  this  case,  as  she  knew  the  wife,  the  fault  was 
obviously  the  husband's. 

Mrs.  Dearborn  opened  her  wide  grey  eyes  even 


96  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

wider  than  usual.  She  always  looked  a  little  sur- 
prised, a  little  bewildered,  as  if  life  had  suddenly 
been  brought  to  her  notice — a  guest  forced  on  her 
when  she  was  not  at  home.  "I  wonder,"  she  mur- 
mured vaguely,  " — I  mean  I  wonder  how  to  de- 
scribe him  to  you.  He  is  very  big "  Her  voice 

trailed  off. 

Rosemary  waited. 

"I  am  afraid  my  illness  has  been  a  terrible  ex- 
pense. He  has  been  very  good  about  it."  Mrs. 
Dearborn  managed  to  convey  subtly  that  he  had  not 
been  very  good  about  it.  "But  of  course  it  is  so  diffi- 
cult for  the  people  who  are  always  well  to  under- 
stand bad  health,  and  Charles  thinks  that  I  don't 
lead  the  right  sort  of  life,  that  I  am  not  outdoors 
enough.  He  is  a  wonderful  fisherman  and  a  very 
good  shot." 

"Why  did  you  marry  him*?" 

Mrs.  Dearborn  knew  the  answer  to  that.  It  was 
an  answer  she  had  made  very  often.  "I  was  very 
young — only  seventeen — and  we  were  such  a  big 
family.  My  father  and  mother  were  enchanted 
when  Charles  proposed.  He  was  a  neighbour,  with 
a  big  property  and  heaps  of  money — it  seemed  heaps 
to  us.  His  mother  always  drove  to  church  with  a 
footman  and  wore  such  beautiful  old  lace.  Old 
lace  means  nothing,"  added  Mrs.  Dearborn  with 
sudden,  unexpected  passion.  "Nothing.  You  can't 


THE    SUCCESSOR  97 


sell  it.  You  can't  cut  it.  It  simply  lies  about  in 
drawers  and  is  the  wrong  length  if  ever  you  want  to 
use  it."  She  subsided.  "And  then  there  were  the 
family  jewels — big,  yellowish  diamonds  that  had 
been  reset  in  1850.  It  all  seemed  to  suit  Lady 
Amelia.  She  was  a  terrifying  old  lady,  holding  her- 
self beautifully,  invariably  courteous  to  her  in- 
feriors and  insolent  to  her  equals." 

"Did  she  like  you?' 

"I  was  penniless,  but  she  thought  it  vulgar  to 
mention  money.  In  her  way  she  was  a  great  lady. 
'The  cnild  is  a  gentlewoman,'  she  said.  'If  she  were 
a  princess  she  could  not  be  more  and,'  she  added 
drily,  'she  might  be  less !'  When  we  married  she  in- 
sisted on  moving  into  the  dower-house,  and  all  that 
first  year,  while  I  was  expecting  Tom,  she  was  very 
good  to  me.  Soon  after  he  was  born  she  died,  and 
I  felt  that  I  had  lost  not  only  a  friend  but  a  ram- 
part. I  think  she  always  knew  I  didn't  love  her 
son  as  I  should.  What  she  did  not  know  was  that 
I  cared  for  someone  else." 

Rosemary  was  thrilled.  Her  green  eyes  were 
dancing. 

"Tell  me  about  him,"  she  begged  eagerly. 

"He  was  tall  and  dark  and  ascetic  looking.  He 
reminded  one  of  a  crusader  or  some  mediaeval  knight- 
errant.  He  was  always  talking  to  me  about  the  in- 
justices he  was  going  to  fight;  and  he  said  that,  with 


98  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

me  to  keep  his  armour  bright — by  his  armour  he 
meant  his  ideals — he  thought  he  really  could  make 
the  world  a  little  happier." 

"And  you  deserted  him?" 

"Well,  he  was  nineteen  and  I  was  seventeen.  I 
married  Charles ;  and  he  became  a  very  distinguished 
novelist.  His  name  is  Hilary  Severn." 

"Hilary  Severn,  the  Hilary  Severn?  Then  you 
are  the  heroine  of  all  his  books — the  exquisite  sensi- 
tive woman  crushed  by  the  brutality  of  the  world! 
Sometimes,  you  know,  I  thought  he  capitalised  mis- 
fortune, but  now  I  see  he  was  always  thinking  of 
you — and  of  course  the  coarse,  unsensitive  husbands 
were  all  Mr.  Dearborn." 

Mrs.  Dearborn  smiled.  "Don't  jump  to  con- 
clusions. Hilary  never  knew  Charles.  He  wrote 
and  wished  me  happiness,  and  said  that  I  should 
always  be  his  great  inspiration  through  life — his  star 
I  think  he  called  it — but  that  he  didn't  want  to  see 
me.  It  would  be  too  painful." 

"Oh  how  wonderful !  But  of  course  he  never  mar- 
ried— or  if  he  did  it  must  have  been  years  afterward 
— out  of  kindness." 

"I  don't  know — I  have  never  seen  him  since.  I 
so  seldom  go  to  London." 

There  was  a  silence.  Rosemary  thought,  "Ah, 
the  worst  books  must  be  true  then.  Life  is  like  a 
serial — Hurrah !" 


THE    SUCCESSOR  99 


Mrs.  Dearborn  thought,  "I  wonder  if  his  wife  is 
like  me  at  all,  or  if  he  married  someone  very  young 
and  fluffy  and  second-rate.  I  should  hate  her  to  be 
yery  young."  She  turned  again  to  Rosemary,  "My 
dear,"  she  said.  "You  mustn't  think  that  Charles  is 
a  villain.  He  is  just  the  wrong  man  married  to  the 
wrong  woman.  He  ought  to  have  had  a  sporting, 
out-of-door  wife.  Someone  whom  he  could  have 
described  in  his  favourite  phrase  as  'an  awfully  jolly 
little  woman,  plucky  as  they  make  'em.'  I  was  no 
good  for  that." 

Mrs.  Dearborn  looked  very  pathetic;  Rosemary's 
chivalry  was  aroused.  "It  is  like  you  to  defend 
him,"  she  said.  "He  must  be  horrible."  And 
Mrs.  Dearborn  left  it  at  that. 

A  few  days  later  Charles  unexpectedly  arrived. 
He  was  undoubtedly  what  is  described  as  a  splendid 
specimen  of  the  human  race,  a  very  Viking  of  a  man. 
Rosemary,  as  a  loyal  champion  of  his  downtrodden 
wife,  was  frankly  hostile  from  the  first  and  full  of 
ostentatious  little  attentions  to  her  friend.  But  she 
found  the  attitude  hard  to  keep  up.  Charles  with  his 
golf-clubs,  his  tennis-rackets,  his  fishing-rods,  his  irre- 
pressible spirits,  his  inexhaustible  plans  for  picnics 
and  excursions  of  all  sorts,  seemed  to  be  plotting  fun 
for  them  all  the  time.  And  whether  it  was  an  expe- 
dition to  Grasse  for  scent  or  to  Monte  Carlo  for  gam- 
bling, his  frank  enjoyment  of  everything  and  his 


1OO  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

efficient  control  of  the  practical  arrangements,  made 
him  invaluable  either  as  a  host  or  a  guest.  True,  his 
sense  of  humour  was  of  the  private-school  boy 
variety.  He  was  always  talking  of  a  "hole  in  his 
racket,"  "a  hand  like  a  foot,"  and  making  jokes  in 
which  beds  or  whiskey  bottles  played  prominent 
parts.  Every  night  he  said  to  his  wife,  "Well,  we 
must  go  to  our  baskets;  or  perhaps  I  should  say,  in 
more  refined  language,  to  Bedlam."  And  every 
morning  he  said  to  Rosemary,  "Ho,  ho!  Miss  Rose- 
mary, for  whom  are  we  so  beautiful  to-day?"  And 
yet  he  wasn't  somehow  very  like  a  brute. 

Mrs.  Dearborn  was  always  very  sweet  to  her  hus- 
band and  very  patient.  To  see  her  smile  at  one  of 
his  jokes  was  to  realise  that  it  was  a  very  bad  joke 
indeed,  and  that  she  was  a  very  good  wife.  Nobody 
could  accuse  her  of  ever  having  shown  a  sign  of 
irritation  even  when  Charles  was  at  his  most  boister- 
ous and  his  most  genial.  The  way  her  face  emptied 
of  all  expression  when  he  said  "the  Missus,"  or  "my 
old  gal,"  was  more  eloquent  than  any  comment.  She 
never  shrugged  her  shoulders  or  looked  round  for 
pity.  She  was  an  artist. 

Rosemary  had  refreshed  her  tremendously.  It 
was  a  long  time  since  she  had  talked  about  her- 
self to  such  a  sympathetic  audience — she  was  al- 
ways so  buried  in  Cumberland — and  it  was  a  very 
long  time  indeed  since  she  had  talked  about  Hil- 


THE    SUCCESSOR  1O1 


ary.  But  now  she  found  herself  thinking  of  him 
more  than  she  had  ever  done.  The  tone  of  his  voice, 
the  things  he  had  said  to  her,  the  reverent  adoration 
with  which  he  had  surrounded  her — she  remembered 
them  all.  And  what  care  he  had  taken  of  her! 
How  he  had  always  wrapped  her  up.  He  was  so 
afraid  of  drafts  for  her,  so  anxious  about  her  health, 
so  aware  of  her  fragility.  "You  are  so  frail,  Lily," 
he  used  to  say,  "I  am  afraid  to  touch  you,  to  look 
at  you  even.  I  sometimes  am  haunted  by  the 
thought  that  you  may  evaporate  before  my  eyes." 

And  he  had  so  loved  her  to  be  called  "Lily."  He 
was  always  searching  for  new  poems  in  which  her 
name  appeared — ransacking  the  literatures  of  the 
world  for  what  he  called  a  "mention  of  her." 

Charles  had  said,  "I  wonder  what  they  wanted  to 
give  you  a  housemaid's  name  like  Lily  for.  No  ac* 
counting  for  parents,  is  there*?"  She  had  been  so 
relieved  that  he  had  not  loved  her  name.  She  would 
have  hated  Hilary  to  have  to  share  anything  with 
him. 

"What  do  you  think  of  my  husband,  Rosemary*?" 
asked  Mrs.  Dearborn  one  day. 

Rosemary  blushed.     "I  don't  know — Of  course, 

I  see  he  can't  appreciate  you "    Mrs.  Dearborn 

winced.    "That  of  course  a  woman  like  you  wouldn't 
mean  anything  to  him.    He  isn't  fastidious  or  sensi- 


1O2  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

tive  I  know — but  I  can't  help  liking  him  all  the 
same." 

Mrs.  Dearborn  was  disappointed. 

"You  don't  mind,  do  you?" 

Mrs.  Dearborn  looked  contemptuously  at  Rose- 
mary. "Mind,  dear  child"?  What  an  extraordinary 
idea.  I  long  for  you  to  love  Charles.  I  wish  more 
people  did." 

******* 

Mrs.  Dearborn  was  always  excited  when  she  was 
in  London.  There  was  so  much  to  see  and  so  many 
things  she  wanted  to  get.  She  always  ended  by 
buying  very  little,  and  choosing  clothes  that  would 
be  absolutely  unsuited  to  the  country.  She  adored 
dresses  and  she  refused  to  spoil  her  holiday  by  re- 
membering Cumberland.  She  always  regretted  this 
when  she  got  back  home,  but  she  never  mended  her 
ways. 

To-night  she  was  dining  with  Rosemary's  father 
and  mother,  and  Rosemary  had  begged  her  to  look 
her  best.  She  was  wearing  a  periwinkle-blue  chiffon 
dress,  and  a  big  bunch  of  delicious  real  Parma  violets. 
She  could  feel  little  waves  of  perfume  coming  up 
to  her  from  them.  Her  eyes  were  starry  with  excite- 
ment as  she  walked  into  the  drawing-room;  there 
was  a  faint  unconscious  smile  of  pure  pleasure  on 
her  lips.  After  dinner  she  was  going  to  a  ball;  it 
made  her  feel  so  young  and  gay. 


THE    SUCCESSOR  1C>3 


Rosemary  dashed  to  meet  her,  flushed  and  radiant, 
and  soon  the  six  people  in  the  room  had  been  intro- 
duced to  her — that  is  to  say  that  she  had  heard  some 
mumbled,  murmured  names,  not  one  of  which  had 
emerged  clearly. 

At  dinner  she  sat  between  Rosemary's  father  and 
a  tall,  dark  man  with  steel-grey  hair  and  steel-grey 
eyes.  He  appeared  very  stern  and  rather  prosperous. 
His  lips  were  thin  and  looked  as  if  he  repressed 
them  continually.  They  were  not  allowed  to  be  ex- 
pressive and  his  smile  was  a  wintry  affair.  His  face 
was  beautifully  cut.  He  sat  on  the  edge  of  his  chair 
as  if  afraid  to  let  himself  go  to  the  extent  of  sitting 
down  comfortably.  He  talked  to  her  en  profile. 

"If  I  were  wearing  a  yashmak  he  would  see  more 
of  me,"  she  thought  irritably.  He  seemed  to  be  try- 
ing to  make  her  feel  guilty.  She  was  disagreeably 
reminded  of  the  cold  pudding  she  was  made  to  eat 
as  a  child,  while  the  nurse  rubbed  in  all  the  little 
starving  children.  "A  happy,  cared-for  woman  like 
you  doesn't  know '  he  plunged  into  a  descrip- 
tion of  some  slum.  She  wished  he  wouldn't  spoil  her 
little  outing.  She  so  rarely  had  a  treat. 

Then  there  was  a  pause  in  the  conversation,  and 
a  glowing  panegyric  of  Jane  Austen  and  her  novels 
entangled  the  general  attention.  "No  one  has  her 
sense  of  form.  Her  points  are  pointed  instead  of 


1O4  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

being  underlined.  Her  perfection  of  balance  pro- 
duces perfection  of  emphasis." 

Lily  was  delighted.  She  looked  at  her  neighbour. 
His  voice  was  booming.  "She  had  no  range. 
Tragedy  was  not  even  a  word  to  her." 

"Tragedy  is  hardly  more  than  a  word  to  the  peo- 
ple who  use  it  most  often,"  retorted  Jane's  cham- 
pion heatedly.  "You  use  a  large  canvas  and  perhaps 
you  take  the  world  in  even  though  you  be  a  mere 
scene  painter.  No  one  can  fake  a  cameo  if  it  is  not 
perfect.  It  is  nothing. 

"Only  the  artists  interest  me  whose  hearts  beat 
in  unison  with  the  poignant  misery  of  the  world.  If 
you  have  not  felt  that  you  have  not  lived.  Pity  is 
essential."  Lily  felt  an  ever-growing  irritation,  but 
she  was  quite  incapable  of  plunging  into  the  con- 
versation. After  all  she  had  nothing  against  pity. 

"Mr.  Severn  has  always  been  a  knight-errant," 
said  Rosemary's  mother  pacifically. 

Severn — knight-errant — Mrs.  Dearborn's  mind 
was  in  a  whirl.  For  one  overwhelming  moment  she 
thought  she  was  going  to  faint.  Surely  it  was  too 
horrible  to  be  true.  This  man  beside  her  the  sub- 
stance of  her  dreams  whose  memory  had  warmed  her 
during  all  these  bleak,  barren  years'?  Bitterness 
welled  up  within  her. 

"I  don't  think  you  remember  me.    My  name  is 


THE    SUCCESSOR  105 


Lily."    Her  voice  was  very  clear  and  low  and  cold. 

He  looked  at  her  now  and  she  thought  she  saw 
a  look  of  consternation,  of  fear  almost  (perhaps  she 
was  exaggerating)  cross  his  face.  His  voice  had 
changed. 

"Lily,"  he  said — "my  dear.  I  have  thought  about 
you  so  much,  so  often.  Are  you  happy?  Tell  me?" 

"I  am  the  sort  of  woman  you  have  always  written 
about." 

"It  had  to  be  so,"  he  said.  A  new  wave  of  irrita- 
tion swept  over  her  at  his  complacent  acceptance  of 
her  unhappiness.  Her  life  was  a  testimonial  to  his 
attitude,  a  piece  of  evidence,  an  added  proof  that 
he  was  right.  She  wondered  if  he  ever  forgave 
people  for  being  happy.  Capitalized  misfortune — 
she  remembered  Rosemary's  phrase — and  his  aft  was 
the  interest  on  it.  How  clearly  she  was  thinking! 
She  never  seemed  to  have  thought  clearly  before. 
She  had  not  disappointed  him.  She  too  had  been  a 
failure.  An  icy  curiosity  came  over  her.  "Are  you 
married'?"  she  asked. 

"Yes.  She  was  the  wife  of  a — a  drunkard.  I 
ran  away  with  her  and  I  hope  I  have  been  able  to 
bring  a  little  brightness  into  her  life." 

No  impulse  even  there.  Lily  was  beginning  to 
feel  flippant.  "It  had  to  be  so,v  she  said  as  they 
got  up  from  the  table. 

But  as  she  drove  back  to  her  hotel,   (she  had 


1O6  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

danced  till  3)  she  felt  an  emptiness  she  had  never 
before  known. 

"Poor  Rosemary,  planning  a  romance  and  killing 
one,"  she  mused.  And  'then,  "How  nice.  I  haven't 
an  illusion  left  in  the  world.  I  feel  so  care-free." 

The  next  day  she  returned  to  Cumberland.  All 
the  way,  she  thought  of  her  home,  her  dog,  her  won- 
derful, herbaceous  border — her  Princess  of  Wales 
violets,  the  gardenias  and  poinsettias  that  were  to  be 
the  pride  of  her  winter  conservatory.  She  must  try 
to  have  a  lot  of  flowers  ready  for  Tom  when  he  got 
home  from  India  for  Christmas.  She  did  love  him 
so. 

She  thought  of  Charles  and  how  he  would  be  at 
the  station  with  the  dog-cart  and  two  spaniels.  He 
would  be  having  a  joke  with  the  station-master — 
probably  an  old  joke  which  had  long  ago  lost  its 
point,  but  which  was  all  the  more  significant  for  that. 
He  would  give  her  a  resounding  kiss  and  toss  her  up 
into  the  dog-cart.  "Light  as  a  feather,"  he  would 
say — "figure  of  a  girl  of  eighteen." 

Charles  was  gloriously  fixed  and  reliable  (there 
was  a  time  when  she  had  called  it  stationary  and 
monotonous) ;  he  was  so  clumsy  and  so  faithful  and 
so  good — in  a  way,  too,  she  felt  him  helpless  in  his 
hopeless  inability  to  express  himself  or  understand 
her.  The  thought  of  his  helplessness  touched  her. 
She  smiled  tenderly.  A  curiously  glowing  feeling 


THE    SUCCESSOR  IOJ 


was  round  her  heart.  Could  she — did  she  love 
Charles? 

The  train  drew  up  at  the  station.  Happily, 
eagerly,  like  a  young  bride  she  looked  out  of  the 
windows.  A  sickening  fear  clutched  her  heart.  .  .  . 
No,  there  he  was — there  were  the  spaniels — there 
was  the  station-master.  An  unreasoning  joy  pos- 
sessed her.  She  darted  out  of  the  carriage  and  threw 
herself  with  a  defiant  gesture  of  abandon  into  her 
husband's  arms. 

"I  am  glad  to  be  home,"  she  whispered. 

Her  radiant  smile  surprised  even  the  station-mas- 
ter. "There  is  no  place  like  home,"  she  said  to  him. 
He  had  never  heard  her  talk  like  that  before. 

Charles  tossed  her  into  the  dog-cart  and  they 
drove  through  the  cornfields,  a  red-gold  earth  and  a 
red-gold  sky.  He  talked  about  the  crops  and  she 
drank  in  the  beauty  of  the  evening  and  told  herself 
what  a  fine,  simple  man  he  was.  She  didn't  listen  to 
what  he  was  saying.  .  .  . 

"I  want  to  look  lovely,"  she  said  to  her  maid. 

Robbins  was  amazed.  Her  mistress  didn't  usually 
want  to  look  lovely  alone  in  Cumberland.  She  put 
on  a  silvery  tea-gown  and  white  jasmine  in  her  hair 
and  in  her  bosom.  "You  look  topping,"  said 
Charles;  and  she  flushed  with  pleasure. 

During  dinner  he  told  her  all  the  news.    Of  how 


1O8  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

little  milk  Pansy  was  giving,  and  that  Miss  Mar- 
joribanks  wanted  to  marry  the  curate.  "How  splen- 
did !"  said  Lily.  "Does  she  love  him?' 

"I  suppose  so,"  Charles  was  doubtful — "but — old- 
maids  can't  be  choosers."  His  hearty  laugh  rang 
out:  "He's  got  no  chin  you  know,  so  I  don't  suppose 
he  has  a  dog's  chance  of  escaping." 

After  dinner  they  sat  on  the  terrace  under  a  red- 
gold  harvest  moon.  Suddenly  she  sat  down  on  his 
knee. 

"Charles,  do  you  very  much  wish  you  had  mar- 
ried a  different  sort  of  woman*?" 

He  felt  very  elated,  very  shy,  very  nonplussed. 
"My  dear,  at  the  bottom,  you  know  there  is  only 
you." 

This  his  confession  of  faithfulness  and  infidelity. 

That  night  she  wrote : 

Dear  Hilary: 

I  want  to  tell  you  that  meeting  you  last  night 
brought  me  great  happiness. 

L.D. 


XII 
AS  IT  WAS  IN  THE  BEGINNING 

DOES  it  disturb  you  if  I  read?" 
"Not  a  bit,  but  don't  wake  me  up  when  you 
put  the  light  out." 

"No." 

"Good-night  my  darling." 

"Good-night  my  darling." 

"Bless  you — Say  bless  you." 

"Why?  Because  it  means  I  am  not  going  to  say 
anything  more?" 

"Ah,  if  it  only  meant  that!" 

He  was  bantering  her. 

"Do  you  love  me?" 

As  she  asked  the  question  she  was  conscious  that 
it  was  serious,  terribly  serious.  He  wouldn't  know 
that.  He  would  simply  think  it  was  her  usual  ridicu- 
lous demand  for  verbal  assurances. 

"God  how  I  have  loved  you!" 

"But  you  do  still  love  me?" 

"Of  course,  goose,  good-night." 

"Bless  you — Say  bless  you." 

"Bless  you.  Swear  not  to  wake  me  up  when  you 
put  the  light  out." 

"I  swear." 

109 


11O  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

He  turned  over  and  was  fast  asleep  in  a  moment. 

She  watched  him.  Only  a  year  ago  he  would 
have  been  tingling  with  awakeness  at  having  her 
there  beside  him.  He  would  have  been  trembling 
with  passion  forcibly  controlled  into  tenderness.  Or 
it  might  have  broken  loose  as  it  sometimes  had  done. 
.  .  .  She  hadn't  liked  it.  How  could  one  like  it 
unless  one  were  completely  merged  in  it*?  But  pas- 
sion had  seemed  to  her  an  inevitable  part  of  the  love 
that  she  had  craved  for,  and  now  it  had  ceased  to 
be  a  permanent  state  and  become  an  intermittent 
function.  Did  she  want  it  back?  Surely  not.  And 
yet  she  wanted  the  guarantee.  She  was  wretchedly 
unconvinced  by  the  present  state  of  affairs  which 
were  just  what  she  had  longed  for  a  year  ago. 
Suddenly  he  turned  and  taking  her  in  his  arms  he 
crushed  her  to  him  with  an  almost  mad  violence. 
Brutally  he  pressed  her  lips  with  his  until  they 
parted  with  the  pain  arid  all  the  time  he  murmured 
strange  appeals  and  strange  demands.  She  was 
frightened  and  fascinated.  Never  before  had  she 
felt  so  helpless,  so  impotent,  so  dominated.  Her 
body  was  limp  and  she  had  no  control  over  her 
limbs.  Her  will  power,  too,  was  oozing  away. 
Gradually  his  hold  relaxed.  He  almost  fell  away 
from  her.  She  was  too  dazed  to  speak.  He  turned 
round  with  a  deep  sigh  and  began  the  regular 
breathing  of  untroubled  sleep.  She  lay  awake  think- 


AS    IT    WAS    IN    THE    BEGINNING  111 

ing.  So  it  wasn't  dead,  just  suppressed.  It  had 
come  back  and  she  liked  it.  Thank  God,  she  prayed 
exultantly,  as  she  fell  into  a  radiant  sleep. 

"It  was  so  strange,"  he  said  next  morning.  "I 
dreamt  of  a  woman  who  was  once  my  mistress, — I 
haven't  seen  her  for  years — and  then  I  thought  I 
saw  you  watching  me  and  gradually  both  pf  you 
faded  away  and  I  slept  the  sleep  of  the  just." 

"The  sleep  of  a  husband?" 

He  must  have  heard  the  bitterness  she  couldn't 
quite  keep  out  of  her  voice. 

"Of  a  lover,"  he  said  smiling  at  her. 

But  she  shook  her  head. 


XIII 
THE  OLD  STORY 

I  HAVE  everything  in  the  world  to  make  me 
happy,"  Margaret  stated  to  herself  miserably 
and  proceeded  to  make  an  inventory  of  all  of  those 
ingredients  that  so  resolutely  refused  to  merge  into 
contentment.  "I  have  the  most  delightful  hus- 
band." Her  mind  dwelt  on  Michael,  his  immense 
charm,  his  beautiful  manners,  the  quietly  valuable 
quality  of  his  brain,  the  fact  that  if  breeding 
meant  anything  at  all  it  meant  him — the  fastidi- 
ous aristocrat  to  whom  all  moral  lapses  were  lapses 
of  taste,  who  believed  in  public  service,  who  de- 
lighted in  human  nature,  who  ate  and  drank  and 
gambled  and  made  love,  endowing  each  in  turn  with 

his  own  indefinable  distinction and  whose  form 

of  relaxation — she  couldn't  understand  it — was  sec- 
ond rate  women,  girls  under  twenty,  chandeliers, 
rag-time,  restaurants.  Shooting  and  fishing  too,  of 
course,  golf  and  racquets,  but  a  Cabinet  Minister 
under  45,  with  a  brilliant  present,  a  still  more  bril- 
liant future,  no  money  and  estates  which  are  an 
entailed  liability  has  more  time  by  night  than 
by  day. 

She  remembered   the   time  when  she  had   first 

112 


THE    OLD    STORY 


known  him.  She  had  been  a  girl  under  twenty,  the 
girl  under  twenty  she  sometimes  felt — it  seemed  ri- 
diculous and  remote  now — and  his  wife  had  looked 
so  much  older  than  he  did.  He  had  fallen  passion- 
ately in  love  with  her,  irresistibly,  at  first  sight.  She 
had  only  discovered  it  much  later  and  it  had  come  as 
a  great  shock,  a  nervous  shock,  a  moral  shock.  Those 
were  the  days  of  her  youth,  her  hardness,  glorious 
days  of  untempted  intolerance  and  absolute  standards 
•of  right  and  wrong.  She  hadn't  been  very  critical  of 
other  people,  only  very  proud  of  her  own  rigid  fas- 
tidiousness, her  crisp  cold  purity,  the  effortless  ease 
with  which  she  kept  to  the  narrowest  of  paths.  She 
had  felt  crumpled  and  tarnished  by  his  passion  and 
she  hadn't  forgiven  him  easily.  The  sight  of  his 
wife  had  made  her  feel  guilty  and  tender,  miserable 
and  ill  at  ease.  Him,  she  could  not  bear  to  see ;  it 
got  on  her  nerves  to  be  in  a  room  with  him  and  the 
humble  mute  appeal  in  his  eyes  moved  he*r  alter- 
nately to  pity  and  rage.  All  the  laughter  had  gone 
out  of  their  relationship  and  it  had  become  an  im- 
possible thing.  His  wife  had  been  very  gentle,  very 
loving.  It  had  surprised  her.  Ann  Truro  was  a 
narrow,  passionate,  concentrated  woman,  who  loved 
her  husband  and  children  with  a  fierce  jealous  love. 
Farouche  and  uncompromising,  with  the  shyness  of 
a  wild  animal,  she  wrapped  up  her  intense  sensitive- 
ness in  layers  of  cold  reserve.  She  reminded  Mar- 


114  l    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

garet  of  bleak  magnificent  moor  lands  with  sudden 
headstrong  rushes  of  water.  There  was  something 
elemental  about  her  which  peeped  through  the  grave 
dignity  of  the  mediseval  chatelaine.  You  could  see 
two  pictures  of  her — in  one  she  was  the  centre  of 
embroidering  ladies  and  humming  spinning-wheels, 
in  the  other  you  saw  her  knee  deep  in  wet  heather 
battling  undaunted  with  wind  and  rain.  In  neither 
was  there  a  place — artistically — for  Michael,  the  de- 
lightful quizzical  man  of  the  world  who  looked  with 
tender  amusement  at  the  colliding  forces  of  life,  who 
never  denounced  because  he  never  believed,  who 
knew  no  disillusionment  because  he  had  known  no 
illusions.  Examining  his  fellow  creatures  with  the 
dispassionate  scientific  delight  of  an  etymologist,  his 
sympathy  appeared  perfect  because  of  the  perfec- 
tion of  his  understanding.  The  doors  and  windows 
of  his  mind  were  always  open  and  his  psychological 
hospitality  reaped  a  rich  harvest.  He  himself  ob- 
served a  rigid  code  of  loyalty,  devotion,  hard  work, 
courage,  disinterestedness.  This  was  his  only  form 
of  arrogance  and  intolerance.  He  resolutely  set  him- 
self a  far  higher  standard  than  he  would  allow  to 
the  rest  of  the  world. 

Michael  loved  an  open  house  where  his  friends,  his 
acquaintances,  his  enemies  and  his  oddities  could 
congregate  at  all  hours  and  smoke  till  you  could  only 


THE    OLD    STORY 


see  dim  blurred  faces  and  talk  till  your  head  went 
round  like  a  piano  stool. 

Bewildered  and  miserable,  Ann  would  sit  in  a 
rocking-chair  in  a  corner,  aloof  and  stiff,  while  waves 
of  banter  and  laughter  and  wit  broke  over  the  room 
but  always  short  of  her.  She  knew  it  was  her  own 
fault  but  she  couldn't  help  it.  She  would  sit  think- 
ing of  the  old  days  when  they  had  loved  one  an- 
other with  an  all  embracing,  all-excluding  love,  of 
how  they  had  walked  hand-in-hand  over  the  hills 
at  night  dreaming  of  their  wonderful  star-lit  future. 

She  loved  him  just  as  much  now  though,  God 
knew,  she  hated  this  chandelier-lit  menagerie.  "I 
suppose  the  stars  are  still  outside,"  she  thought 
bitterly  and  people  said,  "What  a  difficult  trying 
wife  poor  Michael  has  got." 

She  had  never  become  accustomed  to  her  hus- 
band's love  of  very  young  girls.  She  had  always 
been  jealous  of  them  and  hated  them  till  Margaret 
— Margaret  the  radiant,  the  irrepressible,  the  irresist- 
ible, gay  and  gurgling  and  bubbling,  kitten-like, 
flower-like,  entrancing,  enchanting.  Ann  had  found 
herself  dragged  forcibly  into  the  rough  and  tumble 
of  wits  in  her  own  house,  forced  out  of  her  dark  box 
on  to  the  stage,  made  to  enjoy  herself.  She  had  come 
to  love  Margaret  with  the  hungry  loneliness  with 
which  she  loved  her  own  children.  And  then  one 
day  this  chosen  child  came  to  her  white,  wan,  wide- 


Il6  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

eyed,  listless,  limp  and  forlorn,  very  pathetic  in 
her  extinguished  sunshine.  Ann  realised  what  had 
happened  and  she  felt  a  rage  with  her  husband  that 
had  nothing  personal  in  it  but  was  rather  outraged 
mother-love. 

Margaret  didn't  come  often  after  that — only  just 
often  enough  to  keep  up  appearances.  What  appear- 
ances, she  sometimes  wondered1?  She  was  sure  that 
Ann  knew  what  had  happened  but  was  prevented  by 
loyalty  to  her  husband  from  hinting  at  it.  Michael 
— she  thought  it  odd — still  liked  seeing  her.  Every- 
thing about  her  was  loaded  with  significance  for 
him — the  intonations  of  her  voice,  her  queer  little 
gestures  (every  time  she  moved  her  hands  he  thought 
they  were  touching  him  and  he  felt  a  little  shiver 
go  down  his  spine)  the  way  she  turned  her  head.  It 
seemed  strange  to  her  that  he  could  bear  the  sus- 
pension of  their  old  intimacy,  the  perfunctory  nerv- 
ous commonplaces  of  their  intercourse.  She  was  too 
young  to  know  that  loving  her  as  he  did  her  insight, 
her  sympathy,  her  wit  were  nothing  to  him.  If  she 
talked  about  the  weather  or  Bradshaw  it  was  all  the 
same.  He  only  wanted  to  see  her,  to  hear  her,  to 
touch  her,  to  know  that  she  was  there,  to  weave  pat- 
terns of  her  into  his  dreams. 

Every  visit  to  his  house  was  misery  to  her.  Cov- 
ered from  head  to  foot  in  armour  she  would  plunge 
into  battle,  talking  in  what  seemed  to  her  a  strange 


THE    OLD    STORY 


hard  voice,  very  brilliant,  very  witty  with  a  bright- 
ness that  was  centuries  away  from  her  old  flames 
and  shadows. 

Michael  would  smile  at  her  with  that  charming 
smile  she  knew  so  well,  his  eyes  all  wrinkled  up,  teas- 
ing her,  laughing  at  her,  pretending  to  trip  her  up 
as  he  rushed  her  along.  His  whimsical  reception  of 
her  enthusiasms  made  them  seem  a  little  ridiculous, 
— he  shrugged  civilly  at  her  moral  indignation  to 
hide  a  yawn.  Her  brain  that  had  attracted  him  so 
much  when  he  first  knew  her  had  become  quite  irrele- 
vant. Perhaps,  he  thought,  it  had  always  been  her 
triumphant  youth  that  had  swept  him  off  his  feet. 
His  mind  played  with  the  amusing  thfsis — was 
youth  a  part  of  her — just  an  item — or  was  she  the 
ambassadress  of  youth4? 

In  all  their  discussions  Ann  passionately  cham- 
pioned Margaret.  Michael  felt  a  certain  distaste  for 
their  alliance,  it  offended  his  taste  and  he  blamed  his 
wife  for  it — Margaret  after  all  was  so  young.  .  .  . 

Again  that  confounded  word ;  he  really  must  exor- 
cise it,  he  certainly  wasn't  old  enough  for  it  to  have 
become  an  obsession.  The  two  women  liking  one 
another  was  after  all  a  convenience  but  in  a  way  he 
loved  them  both  too  much  to  enjoy  .that  view.  Ann 
was  his  wife,  the  mother  of  his  children  and  Mar- 
garet was  no  more  than  a  child.  .  .  .  Their  associa- 
tion was  repellent  to  him  and  he  was  angry  with  them 


Il8  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

both.    And  then  quite  suddenly  Ann  died — all  in  a 
moment  of  heart  failure.    Michael  was  miserable. 

A  hundred  old  forgotten  pictures  of  their  court- 
ship flashed  back  into  his  memory,  of  their  honey- 
moon, of  those  awful  hours  when  his  wife  was  en- 
during the  tortures  of  the  damned  giving  birth  to  his 
child.  He  remembered,  too,  little  old  forgotten 
jokes,  irrelevant,  unimportant  things  that  they  had 
laughed  at  together,  all  the  strange  adhesive  inti- 
macies of  their  common  life.  The  old  nearness  that 
the  living  woman  had  so  yearned  for  came  back 
now  that  she  was  gone.  It  had  come  back  without 
her. 

For  a  year  Michael  plunged  into  work,  refused  to 
see  his  friends,  shut  himself  up  with  his  remorse 
and  his  children.  Then  the  sight  of  almond  blossom 
and  the  smell  of  lilac  lured  him  back  into  life.  On 
his  way  home  from  his  office  he  loitered,  he  smiled  to 
himself,  he  hummed.  Suddenly  he  thought  of  Mar- 
garet. He  went  straight  to  her. 

*          #          *          *          *          *          * 

Three  months  later  she  was  his  wife.  She  never 
could  understand  just  why  she  had  married  him. 
She  had  never  been  in  love  with  him  and  he  only 
touched  her  physically  at  all  when  he  was  on  her 
nerves.  She  couldn't  surely  be  fool  enough  to  feel 
that  he  was  a  legacy  from  Ann,  and  she  certainly 
didn't  particularly  want  to  be  a  mother  to  his  chil- 


THE    OLD    STORY 


dren — children  that  were,  she  reflected,  so  particu- 
larly, so  essentially  not  her  children.  And  yet  she 
had  accepted  him.  He  had  played  such  a  part  in  her 
life,  had  been  such  a  part  of  it.  He  seemed  to  have 
become  inextricably  woven  into  the  pattern  of  her 
fate.  She  had  felt  a  dummy  in  the  hands  of  Provi- 
dence and  Providence  had  been  allied  to  him.  She 
could  never  quite  understand  why  she  had  felt  so 
will-tied.  Her  family  and  friends  had  been  de- 
lighted. Michael  was  always  so  charming  to  every- 
one, so  considerate — and  how  brilliant,  what  a  won- 
derful career,  the  family  jewels  too  were  so  amusing 
in  their  old  settings,  she  mustn't  dream  of  changing 
them.  Of  course,  it  was  a  pity  that  the  ancestral 
home  had  to  be  let  but  one  couldn't  have  everything. 
Step-children,  too,  were  perhaps  rather  a  trial  (so 
tiresome  that  he  should  have  had  a  son  by  his  first 
wife)  but  such  a  responsibility,  almost  one  might 
say  a  privilege,  an  opportunity.  To  all  of  this 
Margaret  assented  listlessly — though  in  her  gayer 
moments  she  wondered  if  "amusing"  was  really  the 
last  word  on  the  huge  crescents  and  stars,  the  pearls 
like  old  teeth,  and  the  massive  cameos  that  formed 
the  family  jewels.  That  Michael  was  charming, 
considerate  and  brilliant,  she  couldn't  deny.  .  .  . 
She  couldn't  deny  it  to-day  any  more  than  she  could 
deny  it  then. 

"I  have  the  most  delightful  husband,"  she  re- 


12O  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

peated  in  a  dissatisfied  voice  and  in  evidence  of 
what  she  was  saying  he  walked  into  the  room. 

"My  dear,  you  will  be  late  for  dinner."  He  took 
her  hand  and  kissed  it.  "Where  is  your  maid1?" 

"She  has  gone  out." 

A  certain  tonelessness  in  her  voice  struck  him. 

"Are  you  tired?" 

"A  little  tired." 

"You  look  it." 

Somehow  that  was  thejast  straw.  She  felt  near 
tears.  If  only  he  had  said  that  she  looked  well, 
that  she  looked  fresh,  that  she  looked  pretty.  Any- 
thing to  pull  her  out  of  this  morass  of  discouragement 
into  which  she  was  sinking. 

"I  think,"  he  said  stroking  her  hair,  "that  you 
need  a  little  country.  Why  should  you  stay  in  Lon- 
don in  this  hot  weather1?  You  must  not  let  me  be 
too  selfish,  you  know." 

A  wave  of  hopelessness  came  over  her.  She  longed 
to  say : 

"I  don't  want  anything  except  to  be  wanted.  I 
long  for  you  to  make  ceaseless,  impossible  demands 
on  me,"  but  instead  she  said : 

"I  think  it  would  do  me  good.  I  think  I  will  go 
away  for  a  few  days." 

She  heard  him  whistling  in  his  bath.  How  young 
he  was!  She  laughed;  he  was  twenty  years  older 
than  she  was.  As  they  walked  downstairs  he  took 


THE    OLD    STORY  121 


her  arm  and  pressed  it  a  little.  "Darling,"  he  mur- 
mured. Again  she  wanted  to  cry.  She  wished  she 
were  not  too  tired  to  laugh.  They  had  people  din- 
ing and  people  coming  in  after  dinner.  Margaret, 
unlike  Ann,  liked  entertaining,  was  amused  by  con- 
trasts and  enjoyed  oddities.  But  to-night  she  felt  so 
listless  that  each  remark  she  made  was  like  lifting 
a  heavy  weight.  "The  dumb-bell  stage,"  she  called 
it. 

The  lovely  daughter  of  Michael's  secretary  was 
dining,  thrilled  to  be  there,  to  be  able  to  laugh  and 
talk  with  Michael.  Margaret  knew  that  her  pres- 
ence subdued  her  a  little  and  tried  to  counteract 
the  impression.  She  encouraged  Ruby's  sallies  and 
laughed  at  them  till  the  girl  felt  quite  at  her  ease 
and  rattled  on,  her  conversation  studded  with  allu- 
sions to  little  private  jokes,  and  references  to  events 
of  which  Margaret  was  unconscious. 

"Was  I  like  that?"  she  wondered.  "I  don't  think 
I  can  have  been  or  Ann  wouldn't  have  loved  me, 
but  perhaps  it  was  only  that  she  was  a  more  generous 
woman  than  I  am." 

"My  wife  can't  stand  him,  can  you  dear  heart1?" 
she  heard  Michael  say  and  looking  up  she  caught 
a  startled  expression  on  Ruby's  face.  And  with  a 
rush  of  remembrance  it  came  back  to  her — the  first 
time  that  she  had  heard  him  say  "dear  heart"  to 
Ann  and  what  a  strange  unaccountable  shock  it  had 


122  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

given  her.  Afterwards  she  had  listened  for  his  terms 
of  endearment  and  whenever  he  had  been  lover-like 
with  his  wife  it  had  seemed  to  her  a  Judas  kiss. 
She  was  sure  that  was  not  what  Ruby  felt — rather 
the  child  was  suddenly  struck  with  the  thought  that 
these  two  people  in  front  of  her  were  not  mere  offi- 
cial connections,  pieces  of  furnitures  in  one  another's 
lives,  linked  together  by  a  name,  but  that  they  had 
once  been  lovers,  eloquent  and  tongue-tied  and  on 
fire  and  that  there  was  still  something  left  even  if  it 
was  only  a  word.  After  dinner  the  room  filled  with 
people  and  smoke  and  noise.  Ruby  sat  on  a  sofa 
with  Michael,  her  eyes  were  shining,  her  cheeks  were 
flushed  and  she  was  bending  towards  him. 

Margaret  sat  in  a  corner  in  a  rocking-chair  think- 
ing. "May  I  come  and  talk  to  you,  Lady  Truro?"  a 
man  brought  up  his  chair.  "After  all,"  thought 
Margaret,  "I  am  very  accessible." 

"You  don't  usually  sit  right  away  here  in  this  cor- 
ner. It  reminds  me  .  .  ."  he  bit  his  lip. 

She  smiled. 

"It  reminds  you  of  Ann.  You  were  going  to  say"? 
She  always  sat  here." 

"Yes,  of  course.  How  silly  of  me  to  have  stopped. 
iYou  were  one  of  the  few  people  she  loved — I  re- 
member the  way  her  face  lit  up  when  you  came 
into  the  room.  You  always  dragged  her  forward. 


THE    OLD    STORY  123 


Poor  Ann!    She  had  a  difficult  nature  and  she  was 
somehow  always  out  of  things." 

Margaret  smiled  again. 

"She  had  a  charming  husband." 

"So  have  you." 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "the  same  husband." 


XIV 
THE  PILGRIMAGE 

MY  father  was  one  of  the  most  brilliant  men  I 
have  ever  known  but  as  he  refused  to  choose 
any  of  the  ordinary  paths  of  mental  activity  his 
name  has  remained  a  family  name  when  it  should 
have  become  more  exclusively  his  own.  If  anything 
my  mother's  famous  beauty  cast  far  more  lustre  on 
it  than  his  genius — which  preferred  to  bask  in  the 
sunshine  of  intimacy  or  recline  indolently  in  the 
shady  backwaters  of  privacy  and  leisure.  And  yet 
in  a  way  he  was  an  adventurer — or  rather  an  adven- 
turous scientist.  He  was  often  called  cynical  but 
that  was  not  true — he  was  far  too  dispassionate,  too 
little  of  a  sentimentalist  to  be  tempted  by  inverted 
sentimentalism.  Above  all  things  he  was  a  collector 
— a  collector  of  impressions.  His  psychological 
bibelots  were  not  for  everyone.  Some  indeed  lay 
open  in  the  vitime  of  his  everyday  conversation  but 
many  more  lay  hidden  in  drawers  opened  only  for 
the  elect. 

Undoubtedly,  in  a  way,  my  mother  was  one  of  his 
masterpieces.  Her  beauty  seemed  to  be  enhanced  by 
every  hour  and  every  season.  At  forty  suddenly  her 
hair  had  gone  snow  white.  The  primrose,  the  daffo- 

124 


THE    PILGRIMAGE  125 

dil,  the  flame,  the  gold,  the  black,  the  emerald,  the 
ruby  of  her  youth  gave  way  to  grey  and  silver,  pale 
jade  and  faint  turquoise,  shell  pink  and  dim  laven- 
der. Her  loveliness  had  shifted.  The  hours  of  the 
day  conspired  to  set  her.  The  hard  coat  and  skirt, 
the  high  collar,  the  small  hat,  the  neat  veil  of 
morning,  the  caressing  charmeuse  that  followed,  the 
trailing  chiffon  mysteries  of  her  tea-gown,  the  white 
velvet  or  the  cloth  of  silver  that  launched  her  tri- 
umphantly at  night,  who  was  to  choose  between 
them1?  Summer  and  winter  followed  suit.  Whether 
you  saw  her  emerging  from  crisp  organdy  or  cling- 
ing crepe  de  chine,  stiff  grey  astrakan  or  melting 
chinchilla  always  it  was  the  same.  This  moment 
you  said  to  yourself  "She  has  reached  the  climax  of 
her  loveliness." 

My  father  delighted  in  perfection.  He  had  dis- 
covered it  in  her  and  promptly  made  it  his  own.  I 
don't  know  if  he  ever  regretted  the  unfillable  quality 
of  her  emptiness.  Rather  I  think  it  amused  him  to 
see  the  violent  passions  she  inspired,  to  hear  her  low 
thrilling  voice  weigh  down  her  meaningless  murmurs 
with  significance.  To  many  of  her  victims  the  very 
incompleteness  of  her  sentences  was  a  form  of  divine 
loyalty.  One  young  poet  had  described  her  soul  as  a 
fluttering,  desperate  bird  beating  its  wings  on  the 
bars  of  her  marvellous  loveliness.  At  this  her  lazy 
smile  looked  very  wise.  She  thought  my  father 


126  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

an  ideal  husband.  He  was  always  right  about  her 
clothes  and  after  all  he  was  the  greatest  living  expert 
on  her  beauty.  Obviously  he  loved  her  but — well  he 
didn't  love  her  inconveniently.  Her  attitude  to- 
wards me  was  different.  I  was  an  accident.  A  bit 
of  unchosen  furniture  in  her  life, — she  who  chose 
everything  so  carefully.  While  she  could  still  dress 
me  as  a  Kate  Greenaway,  she  could  enjoy  me — but 
there  followed  a  barren  period  till  I  grew  up  and 
she  could  group  me  again.  I  was  so  immense  that  I 
more  particularly  underlined  her  fragility  and  slight- 
ness  and  she  looked  so  young  that  my  being  her  son 
rather  enhanced  than  detracted  from  her  youth. 

So  when  I  left  Oxford  the  tableau  vivant  was  re- 
established. 

My  father  was  the  most  delightful  talker  I  have 
ever  met.  He  could  juggle  with  the  moment  and  fish 
fancies  out  of  the  most  unpromising  topics.  With 
him  soap  and  water  inevitably  turned  into  rainbow- 
tinted  bubbles.  Nor  was  he  without  the  heavy  artil- 
lery of  knowledge.  He  would  mass  his  infantry  of 
facts  to  reinforce  the  light  cavalry  of  his  wit,  and 
the  dash  and  elan  of  his  brilliance  would  sometimes 
mask  the  depth  of  his  scholarship  and  understanding. 

I  have  often  wondered  how  a  man  of  so  many 
parts  could  have  turned  his  life  to  so  little  account. 
Once  I  murmured  something  about  his  wasting  his 
great  gifts. 


THE    PILGRIMAGE 


"What  is  wasting  your  time?"  he  asked.  "Rush- 
ing about  and  fraying  your  nerves  in  order  to  be 
called  a  man  of  action*?  Leisure  is  a  vocation  in- 
vented for  people  who  can  think." 

The  two  things  my  father  really  loved  were  music 
and  myself.  But  I  always  felt  somehow  that  there 
must  have  been  someone  else,  someone  all  satisfying. 
I  don't  know  what  my  conviction  came  from,  per- 
haps it  was  the  feeling  that  without  some  strong, 
fast  current,  deep  and  hidden  through  it  had  to  be, 
bits  of  him  would  have  frozen.  My  mother  could 
never  have  stirred  the  real  man  and  the  fact  that  he 
stood  her  so  graciously,  admired  her  so  unfailingly, 
showed  that  she  had  never  mattered  enough  even  to 
be  a  disappointment.  Once  you  had  ceased  to  be 
surprised  at  her  having  borne  a  child  —  so  incredible 
did  it  seem  that  she  should  ever  have  had  any  con- 
tact with  reality  —  you  ceased  to  think  of  her  at  all 
except  when  you  drew  in  your  breath  at  her  dazzling 
beauty.  But  the  fact  that  she  was  so  easily  "placed" 
psychologically  made  me  wonder  all  the  more  about 
that  inner  life  of  my  father's  of  which  no  murmur  or 
hint  had  ever  reached  me  but  in  the  existence  of 
which  I  so  unfalteringly  believed. 

And  then,  one  day,  quite  by  accident,  when  I  was 
looking  for  something  in  his  room,  I  came  across  an 
old  photograph.  It  was  shiny  and  thick  with  the 
photographer's  name  at  the  bottom  in  gold  and  no 


128  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

artist  had  arranged  the  lighting.  It  seemed,  in  fact, 
hardly  to  have  emerged  from  the  daguerreotype 
stage.  But  it  struck  me  partly  because  of  my  father's 
loathing  of  photographs  and  partly  because  of  the 
"sitter's"  face.  She  was  holding  on  a  shawl,  her  very 
long  fingers  clutching  it  a  little  nervously  while 
her  heavy  lidded  eyes  peered  through  the  curtain 
of  her  lashes  with  the  expression  of  a  watcher  look- 
ing unseen  into  a  room.  Her  big  curly  mouth  had 
square  corners  and  her  nostrils  seemed  cut  out  in 
cardboard.  Her  chin  was  square,  her  forehead  wide 
and  her  hair  looked  lighter  than  her  skin.  I  felt  like 
a  detective  on  his  first  case  suddenly  coming  across 
a  clue  of  first  rate  importance.  How  was  I  to  follow 
it  up?  I  didn't  want  to  appear  to  be  prying  into  my 
father's  private  concerns,  still  less  did  I  want  to  shut 
off  the  possibility  of  a  confidence  from  him  by  some 
indiscreet  question.  But  I  was  burning  with  curios- 
ity and  at  the  best  of  times  I  am  not  particularly 
patient. 

After  several  days  of  fruitless  hope  that  providence 
would  at  least  provide  me  with  an  apple  to  pick 
(Eve  seemed  to  me  to  have  had  all  the  advantages) 
I  plunged  desperately.  My  father  and  I  were  sitting 
smoking  by  a  particularly  rosy  and  welcoming  fire 
and  he  was  talking  about  love  and  love  affairs  and 
marriage — lightly  but  with  all  his  infinite  insight, 
his  wide  human  wisdom. 


THE    PILGRIMAGE 


"Father  forgive  me,"  I  floundered,  "has  no  one 
ever,  hasn't  anyone,  I  mean,  ever  really  meant  any- 
thing, mattered*?" 

He  looked  at  me,  wiped  his  glasses,  smiling  a 
little  at  my  discomfiture. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "I  have  loved  one  woman  in  my 
life.  I  used  the  word  love,"  he  added  quietly,  "in 
the  sense  in  which  it  means  everything  that  it  can 
mean." 

There  was  a  silence  and  then,  unable  to  control 
myself: 

"Could  you  bear  to  tell  me  about  her"?  What  she 
was  like?"  I  wondered  why  I  used  the  past  tense. 

"She  was  more  alive  than  anyone  I  have  ever 
met.  With  more  'follow  through'  in  everything.  It 
sounds  a  ridiculous  phrase  to  use  but  somehow 
ordinary  words  don't  describe  her.  When  you  were 
with  her  everything  became  so  thrilling,  seemed  so 
worth  while.  You  looked  at  the  world  through  her 
eyes  and  you  saw  miracles  all  round  you.  The  com- 
monplace; the  dull,  the  everyday  had  disappeared. 
She  believed  that  people  were  interesting  and  won- 
derful and  they  became  it.  She  wanted  people  to 
be  happy  and  she  made  them  happy  —  with  her 
charity  really  did  mean  love.  She  was  always 
preyed  on  and  tired  out  by  the  dozens  of  worthless 
people  who  clung  to  her,"  his  voice  had  changed,  the 


13O  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

old  memory  of  that  irritation — the  irritation  of  not 
having  her  to  himself — had  come  back  to  him. 

"And  then  of  course  there  was  her  art — her  won- 
derful art.  The  world  was  at  her  feet.  'I  wish 
it  were  at  my  side'  she  would  say  with  her  lovely 
whimsical  smile.  She  wasn't  beautiful  and  oh,  so 
far  from  pretty,  but  her  features  had  a  fascinat- 
ing way  of  playing  with  one  another  as  if  her  eye- 
brows gave  a  hint  to  her  eyes  which  in  their  time 
whispered  a  cue  to  her  mouth.  She  was  so  lithe  and 
strong  and  supple  with  an  indolent  grace  that  masked 
it.  What  is  the  good  of  my  fumbling  on  trying  to 
describe  magic?  If  you  could  have  seen  her — but 
you  never  will.  She  was  Life."  And  he  got  up, 
smiled,  lit  his  candle  and  went  to  bed. 

I  tried  to  piece  the  evidence  together.  The 
world  was  at  her  feet — her  wonderful  art.  She  must 
have  been  an  actress  or  a  singer.  The  "world"  is 
not  "at  the  feet"  of  writers. 

Surreptitiously  I  searched  London  for  photographs 
of  old  artists  but  it  seemed  as  if  conspiracy  had  ar- 
ranged to  conceal  my  lady  with  the  shawl.  Through 
many  a  drawer  of  musty  unwanted  postcards  I  bur- 
rowed but  always  she  eluded  me.  Any  thick,  shiny 
photograph  drew  me  like  a  magnet — but  in  vain. 
Discouraged,  I  prayed  to  providence,  and  one  after- 
noon my  prayer  was  answered. 

My  mother  was  coming  down  to  Roehampton  to 


THE    PILGRIMAGE 


watch  me  play  polo  or  rather  to  hold  her  court  under 
the  trees,  and  I  was  to  pick  her  up  at  her  corsetiere's. 
I  arrived  at  the  appointed  time  and  settled  down 
in  the  front  room  to  wait,  when,  lo  and  behold,  I 
found  on  the  wall  a  wire  entanglement  packed  with 
photographs  —  Isolde  and  the  Merry  Widow,  Lady 
Teazle  and  Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  with  a  generous 
sprinkling  of  ladies  in  picture  hats  and  patches, 
looked  down  at  me.  Eyes  outsmiled  teeth,  teeth  out- 
shone eyes,  while  large  sprawling  writings  assured 
the  world  that  Mme.  Isabelle  was  a  paragon  among 
corsetieres. 

Trembling  I  got  up  shyly  with  a  feeling  of  dedica- 
tion. I  looked  and  there  between  Boadicea  and  a 
pierrette  was  my  lady  of  the  shawl.  I  thought  I 
saw  an  amused  glance  of  recognition  behind  that 
thick  fringe  of  eyelashes,  but  I  was  too  excited  to  be 
sure. 

"I  am  so  sorry  to  have  kept  you  waiting."  At 
that  moment  my  mother's  immaculate  perfection 
was  to  me  nothing  but  a  white  blur.  I  tried  to  force 
my  voice  to  sound  natural. 

"Who  is  that?"  I  asked  in  the  hoarse  tones  of  a 
hero  in  melodrama. 

"Oh  don't  you  know?  But  of  course  you  are  too 
young  to  have  heard  of  her.  That  was  Maddalena 
Moro,  some  people  thought  her  the  greatest  singer 
of  her  age." 


132  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

All  the  things  I  had  ever  heard  of  her  crowded 
into  my  reeling  mind  but  there  was  only  one  clear 
thought  in  my  head. 

"Why  do  you  say  'was/    Is  she  dead?" 

My  mother  shrugged  her  shoulders. 

"I  wonder.  Who  knows"?  Those  people  disap- 
pear and  one  doesn't  hear  of  them  any  more.  She 
retired  suddenly  at  forty.  No  one  knew  why.  Her 
voice  was  as  beautiful  as  ever,  I  believe.  You  should 
ask  your  father  about  her.  He  knew  her  quite  well, 
I  think." 

"Knew  her  quite  well."  So  my  mother  had  known 
nothing,  had  guessed  nothing,  had  suspected  nothing. 

"I  thought  her  rather  an  ugly  woman  though  she 
was  certainly  magnetic.  She  seemed  to  look  through 
your  clothes  and  talked  of  such  odd  things.  I  think 
it  is  so  very  ill-bred  to  be  socially  disconcerting  and 
that  she  certainly  was.  And  then  her  movements 
were  so  strange  and  sudden,  not  at  all  suited  to  pri- 
vate life.  But  it  always  seems  to  me  a  mistake  to 
see  those  stage  people  out  of  their  setting.  And 
then  defrauded  out  of  her  customary  incense,  'Do 
you  like  this  dress?  I  am  not  sure  about  it,'  but 
when  I  gave  her  my  quite  sincere  opinion  she  re- 
laxed into  the  purr  of  a  satisfied  Persian  cat." 

"The  greatest  singer  I  have  ever  heard?"  the  critic 
was  delightfully  conscious  that  everyone  was  listen- 


THE    PILGRIMAGE  133 

ing  to  him.  "Why  I  think  I  fell  plump  for  Madda- 
lena  Moro.  Her  colouratura  was  like  a  girl  walk- 
ing into  the  garden  before  breakfast  and  singing  for 
sheer  love  of  the  birds  and  the  dew.  Her  trills  were 
just  little  patches  of  high  spirits,  little  private  compe- 
titions with  a  particular  lark.  And  her  tragic  singing 
was  marvellous  too.  It  had  the  inevitability  of  fate. 
You  never  felt  that  she  could  have  used  any  other 
word  or  any  other  note  to  express  what  she  wanted 
to.  She  had  that  rarest  of  all  gifts,  she  always 
seemed  to  be  improvising." 

"And  why  did  she  retire  so  young?"  I  asked. 

"No  one  knew.  I  remember  her  saying  to  me 
once,  'I  know  I  shall  go  on  singing  till  my  voice  is 
cracked,  but  you  must  tell  me  when  it  becomes  too 
bad  to  be  true.  You  see  I  simply  can't  stop.  I  love 


it  so.' ' 


"And  when  did  you  see  her  last?" 

"When?  I  don't  remember  the  exact  date.  She 
had  been  singing  the  'Queen  of  the  Night'  with  more 
abandon,  with  more  control  than  ever — but  then  that 
was  the  impression  one  carried  away  each  time  that 
one  heard  her.  I  recall  that  particular  occasion 
because  an  extraordinary  thing  happened.  She  sang 
out  of  tune  three  times.  It  was  so  incredible,  so 
grotesque  that  I  realised  that  she  must  be  ill,  so  I 
went  round,  anxious  about  her,  full  of  sympathy.  I 
knew  exactly  what  she  must  be  feeling  about  it. 


134  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

Her  ear  was  so  perfect.  She  was  one  of  the  few 
singers  I  have  ever  seen  who  was  not  only  an  artist — 
that  is  rare  enough — but  even  a  musician.  When  I 
reached  her  dressing  room  she  was  flushed  and  elated, 
with  shining  eyes  and  a  peculiar,  relaxed  position 
that  was  with  her  a  symbol  of  past  strain  and  present 
triumph.  I  came  up  full  of  sympathy.  'Never,'  she 
said,  'have  I  sung  like  that.  Is  it  not  so,  Rein?' ' 

"  'Of  course  not,'  I  said,  and  she  smiled,  that 
lovely  radiant  smile  that  made  you  feel  as  if  she  were 
throwing  you  a  bit  of  life.  Something  undreamt  of, 
something  alive,  something  real,  something  fragrant. 
She  gave  me  her  hand  and  she  said,  'I  knew  that  to- 
night you  would  be  with  me.'  It  seemed  to  me  so 
pathetic — this  night — the  first  on  which  she  had 
ever  failed — was  after  all  the  night  of  her  friends. 
I  murmured  something  commonplace  about  being 
always  with  her  when  she  would  accept  me  as  a  com- 
panion— an  admirer,  a  confessor,  a  friend — any- 
thing. I  knew  of  course  that  she  had  only  one 
lover" 

"Oh,  do  tell  us  about  him — Name,  Name!" 
There  was  a  chorus. 

"Oh,"  the  critic  caught  sight  of  me  and  blushed, 
"all  that  is  ancient  history." 

"Tell  me,"  I  asked  him  later  in  an  undertone, 
sacrificing  my  father  for  the  first  and  only  time  in 


THE    PILGRIMAGE 


135 


my  life,  "where  is  she  now.     I  have  special  reasons 
for  wanting  to  know." 

Doubtfully  he  looked  at  me.  "I  have  not  seen 
her  for  many  years,"  he  said.  "She  married  an 
Italian  doctor.  This  is  her  address.  Can  I  trust 
you?" — he  hesitated.  "She  is,  I  think,  happy  and 
probably  she  is  at  peace." 

"I  do  not  want  her  resurrection,"  I  said.  "I  am 
visiting  the  shrine  of  the  dead." 

"Peace  be  to  her,"  he  said,  and  I  thanked  him. 
******* 

It  was  early  April  and  the  Easter  holidays  had 
begun.  I  had  quite  made  up  my  mind  to  go  to  Italy 
but  I  was  nervous  and  embarrassed  about  mentioning 
it.  The  things  that  go  on  in  the  innermost  recesses 
of  your  heart  have  a  disconcerting  way  of  making 
you  feel  transparent.  And  in  this  case  I  had  my 
father's  super-human  acumen  to  deal  with.  The 
very  name  Madeleine  which  belonged  to  a  plain 
cousin  of  ours  to  whom  my  mother  was  occasionally 
"kind"  and  who  always  spent  unnoticed  weeks  in  our 
midst,  would  make  me  start  and  give  me  the  ridicu- 
lous feeling  of  being  on  the  brink  of  a  blush. 

And  then  one  morning,  very  casually — much  too 
casually  it  seemed  to  me — I  said,  "I  am  thinking  of 
going  to  Italy,"  and  my  father  said,  "That  seems 
an  excellent  idea,"  and  my  mother  shrugged  her 


136  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

shoulders  and  thought  it  very  rude  to  chuck  a  lot  of 
engagements  for  a  whim. 

A  week  later  I  was  living  in  a  village  inn  basking 
in  the  sunshine  surrounded  by  smiling  teeth  and 
laughing  eyes,  handkerchiefed  heads  and  bare  feet. 
The  country  was  covered  with  furry  anemones  and 
outbursts  of  blossom.  The  weather  was  behaving 
like  an  irrepressible  coquette  with  a  heart  of  gold. 
Raucous  street  singing  with  its  peculiarly  poignant 
quality  kept  me  happily  awake  at  night.  I  was  go- 
ing through  one  of  these  delightful  periods  without 
to-morrow  or  yesterday  when  life  is  a  happy  island 
cut  off  from  birth  or  death. 

All  the  time  I  knew  that  in  the  hills  above  me  was 
Maddalena's  chateau  with  her  wonderful  garden 
climbing  slowly  down  the  hill  terrace  by  terrace. 
The  legend  of  her  flowers  was  well  known.  They 
never — it  was  said — allowed  the  earth  to  peep 
through  but  sprawled  and  overlapped  in  riotous 
orgies,  tumbling  into  blazing  heaps  of  colour. 

Being  at  a  stone's  throw  from  my  goal  had  sud- 
denly and  strangely  sapped  my  curiosity.  I  felt  no 
initiative,  no  energy,  no  hurry,  rather  a  sense  of  pro- 
crastination— a  longing  to  ward  off  the  approaching 
crisis. 

But  time  was  slipping  away  in  golden  moments 
strung  on  a  string  of  idleness.  I  made  up  my  mind 
to  act  and  taking  my  courage  in  both  hands  I  wrote 


THE    PILGRIMAGE  137 


a  line  to  Maddalena  asking  whether  I  might  go  and 
see  her. 

She  invited  me  to  go  to  supper  with  her — on  the 
pergola  if  it  was  warm  enougfy.  It  would,  she  said, 
be  a  great  pleasure  to  see  me.  .  .  . 

When  the  night  arrived,  I  felt  a  strange  longing 
to  run  away.  I  felt  that  I  was  breaking  the  bubble 
.by  trying  to  take  it  in  my  hands,  that  I  was  dragging 
down  romance  into  the  dust  by  my  inquisitiveness. 
When  the  hour  came  for  me  to  start  my  heart  seemed 
to  be  playing  leap-frog,  giving  great  irregular  jumps, 
and  I  felt  more  nervous  than  I  have  ever  felt  before 
or  since. 

I  walked  slowly.  The  night  was  very  dark,  star- 
less and  cloudy  with  an  ominous  feeling  in  the  air. 
The  door  was  opened  by  a  magnificent  looking  Arab 
dressed  in  snow  white  and  I  was  shown  into  an 
immense  sala  which  contained  the  great  secret  of 
emptiness  and  comfort,  luxurious  intimacy  and 
magnificent  spaciousness.  The  light  was  very  dim 
but  I  could  see  huge  masses  of  strangely  mixed 
flowers  which  looked  as  if  they  had  grown  together 
like  that — a  special  arrangement  of  God's. 

I  could  distinguish  the  faint  outline  of  a  white 
figure  closely  draped  in  a  shawl  and  the  most  beauti- 
ful arm  I  have  ever  seen  silhouetted  against  the  back 
of  the  sofa  and  falling  into  a  cascade  of  long  white 
fingers.  As  I  approached  the  figure  rose.  I  held  my 


138  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

breath  and  the  next  moment  I  was  kissing  Madda- 
lena's  hand.  How  shall  I  describe  her  as  she  etched 
herself  on  to  my  memory1? 

She  stood  there  tall  and  strong  and  supple  like 
some  beautiful  statue  created  as  a  vessel  to  hold  life. 
It  was  only  gradually  that  I  dared  look  at  her  face 
and  the  first  thing  I  found  there  was  her  smile — the 
sight  of  which  must  always  have  set  a  thousand 
smiles  in  motion. 

I  remember  the  queer  way  it  had  of  beginning 
at  one  corner  of  her  mouth  and  creeping  slowly  and 
stealthily  to  the  other,  and  then  sometimes  it  would 
break  out  simultaneously  all  along  the  line  with  a 
dazzling  burst  of  radiance.  I  liked  it  best  when  it 
progressed  mysteriously  hardly  touching  her  lips,  like 
an  echo  or  a  shadow  of  something. 

Her  eyes  were  very  strange,  marbled  orange  and 
green,  splashes  of  amber  on  a  background  of  emerald 
jade,  and  her  lashes  were  so  thick  that  it  was  some- 
times difficult  to  catch  the  darting  gleams  behind 
them. 

I  wish  I  could  describe  her. 

Somehow  it  is  impossible  to  give  any  idea  of  her 
tingling  vibrating  quality.  The  overcharged  bat- 
tery that  one  felt  her  to  be.  All  the  electric  sparks 
of  life  that  escaped  from  her,  and  underneath  it  all 
the  swift  strong  current,  the  relentless  water  from 
which  light  is  made. 


THE    PILGRIMAGE  139 

That  evening  I  was  intoxicated.  I  didn't  know 
what  I  was  eating,  what  I  was  saying.  I  felt  that  I 
was  some  will-less  mechanical  performer  in  a  dream. 
The  flickering  orange  light  of  the  tall  yellow  candles, 
the  hard  patches  of  magnesium  made  by  the  moon 
on  the  floor,  the  sound  of  her  voice,  low  and  vel- 
vety and  drowsy  as  it  were  the  soft  wrapping  that 
held  her  wonderful  treasure — it  all  seemed  woven 
into  some  strange  pattern  of  life  of  which  I  was  a 
part. 

Maddalena  talked  of  life,  of  love,  of  triumph,  of 
loneliness,  of  longing — "What  is  Sehnsucht*?"  she 
said.  "What  is  it  one  yearns  for?  It  is  to  be  able  to 
do  a  thing  for  the  first  time  again.  And  that  is  im- 
possible. When  I  love  what  do  I  want"?  I  want 
never  to  have  kissed,  never  to  have  given  myself 
before.  It  is  in  vain  I  say  'Never  has  it  been  like 
this — never  before  was  I  awake — I  was  a  dummy  in 
the  hands  of  fate — now  I  am  alive.'  I  was  shut  up 
perhaps  but  my  outer  petals  were  touched.  Oh,  my 
God,  make  me  again  the  child  I  was — but  he  cannot 
answer." 

It  was  then  I  heard  her  voice  for  the  first  time. 
Her  marvellous  voice  that  had  suddenly  burst  loose 
into  this  note  of  passion.  It  receded  again  into  its 
velvet  cover  and  she  went  on  more  calmly. 

"What  are  we  to  tell  our  children?  How  are 
they  to  know  that  the  first  accidental  encounter  with 


14O  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

life  may  take  from  them  a  treasure  they  will  only 
learn  about  in  forty  bitter  storm-tossed  years.  Those 
first  gifts — those  shy  blossomings  lovely  in  their 
unconsciousness — are  surely  but  the  squandering  of 
something  half  alive,  the  foolish  murder  of  a  bud. 
Oh  youth  is  a  wicked,  cruel  thing — eating  miracles 
with  its  breakfast  and  not  knowing  that  they  are 
not  porridge." 

She  paused  and  when  she  began  again  the  edge  of 
bitterness  had  gone  from  her  voice.  "Of  course," 
she  said,  "a  real  passion  does  purify  you,  does  burn 
up  a  lot  of  dusty  old  relics.  You  shed  your  past 
experiences  like  a  winter  skin;  you  are  renewed  all 
through.  But  if  your  imagination  plays  tricks  with 
you,  in  the  very  absoluteness  of  your  surrender  there 
is  a  gnawing  pang.  'If  this  were  only  the  first 
kiss  I  had  ever  given.'  To  men  it  is  not  so,"  she 
added  with  a  little  smile,  "to  them  it  would  appear 
that  each  kiss  is  swollen  by  all  the  others  that  have 
gone  before,"  and  with  a  little  laugh  she  got  up  and 
walked  into  the  next  room. 

I  didn't  say  anything.  I  was  frightened  of  in- 
terrupting her — of  giving  the  conversation  a  jerk. 

Soon  she  began  again. 

"Middle  age  is  the  period  of  love,"  she  said  a  little 
sadly.  "It  comes  over  you  like  a  fever.  It  is  made  a 
necessity  by  your  doubts,  by  all  the  little  guarantees 
that  you  have  lost.  When  I  was  young  I  liked 


THE    PILGRIMAGE 


141 


power,  I  liked  fame,  I  liked  great  men — statesmen, 
artists,  kings  even — I  liked  my  horses  and  my  jewels, 
ball-room  and  chandeliers,  and  the  murmur  of  my 
name  buzzing  from  person  to  person  when  I  ap- 
peared. It  amused  me  to  drive  around  Hyde  Park 
beautifully  dressed,  with  a  sunshade  bursting  over 
my  head.  I  liked  flowers,  not  only  in  gardens  but  in 
bouquets  and  vases,  peaches,  white  grapes,  caviare, 
and  champagne.  I  enjoyed  the  merry-go-round  of 
youth  and  success.  Then  your  father  came  and  I 
cared  only  for  him — and  my  voice — 'his'  voice  I 
used  to  call  it  because  he  loved  it.  My  art  meant 
much  more  to  me  after  that,  every  note  was  a  gift  I 
could  make  him  and  I  thanked  God  every  day  very 
humbly,  very  reverently  for  giving  me  such  a  mar- 
vellous instrument  for  my  love." 

Suddenly,  she  became  quite  silent.  A  brooding 
look  in  her  eyes,  an  immobility  about  her  whole 
figure. 

Thus  we  sat  for  what  seemed  to  me  an  eternity. 
There  were  a  thousand  things  I  wanted  to  ask. 
When  had  she  broken  with  my  father  and  why? 
How  had  she  been  able  to  give  up  singing,  what  was 
her  husband  like,  was  she  happy?  They  were  all 
crude,  impossible  questions  and  would  look  angular 
in  however  many  layers  of  subtlety  I  might  wrap 
them. 

All  my  life  I  have  been  teased  for  asking  not, 


142  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

"Is  she  beautiful?"  "Is  she  clever?'  but  always,  "Is 
she  happy*?"  I  think  it  is  in  many  ways  the  most 
interesting  thing  about  a  person,  the  most  complete 
description.  If  you  first  try  and  get  a  certain  sense 
of  the  whole  you  can  always  disentangle  the  in- 
gredients later.  Happiness  is  a  light,  an  atmosphere, 
an  illumination.  It  sets  a  personality.  I  always 
feel  that  it  is  a  creation  that  is  difficult  for  some 
and  easy  for  others,  but  essentially  an  achievement, 
never  an  accident.  In  a  way  you  could  never  say 
that  Maddalena  was  "happy"  or  "unhappy."  You 
felt  when  you  were  with  her  that  for  the  first  time 
you  were  in  contact  with  "life" — that  she  contained 
some  elemental  force,  some  spark,  some  current  that 
made  her  a  part  of  all  the  ages. 

I  don't  know  how  to  describe  what  I  mean.  You 
couldn't  imagine  her  having  been  born  or  dying, 
having  been  a  child  or  becoming  an  old  woman. 
There  was  nothing  finite  about  her.  I  was  obsessed 
by  the  necessity  of  breaking  the  silence.  If  I  didn't 
I  felt  that  gradually  I  should  lose  control  of  my 
tongue  and  probably  all  of  my  limbs  as  well.  I 
must  break  the  spell. 

Abruptly,  without  any  warning,  feeling  superla- 
tively foolish,  I  blurted  out,  "Do  you  ever  sing 
now?" 

She  looked  at  me  with  wide  open  eyes.  "No," 
she  said.  "My  husband  could  stand  no  rival.  He 


THE    PILGRIMAGE  143 


wanted  our  love  to  be  everything.  It  has  been 
everything.  He  says  that  in  my  speaking  voice  are 
all  the  songs  of  the  world.  He — how  shall  I  explain 
it — he  reversed  the  plan  of  my  life.  Before,  I  had 
tried  to  expand  the  treasures  of  my  own  life,  my 
little  personal  intimacies  into  the  infinite.  I  sang 
my  love  for  your  father  into  every  opera  house  in  the 
world  but  Giovanni  said,  'No,  you  must  capture  the 
infinite  and  keep  it  tight  shut  in  our  love,'  and  so  it 
has  been." 

I  imagined  the  jealous  lover,  the  Italian  stage 
character  caging  the  marvellous  bird.  It  made  me 
angry,  indignant.  What  right  had  he  to  keep  this 
wonderful  treasure  for  himself. 

"Giovanni  is  a  poet,"  she  murmured — on  her  lips 
his  name  was  a  caress.  "He  is  a  doctor,"  she  added 
with  a  delightful  little  defiant  note  of  pride. 

"Signora,"  I  said,  "I  am  going  to  make  an  im- 
possible, a  monstrous  request.  I  have  no  right  to 
make  it,  it  is  impertinent  beyond  words.  What 
excuse  have  I  to  try  to  force  the  lock  that  reveals  the 
Holy  of  Holies.  I  am  a  presumptuous  fool.  But  if 
you've  ever  known  what  it  was  to  feel  hungry,  if 
you've  ever  known  what  it  was  to  feel  parched  with 
thirst,  if  you've  ever  known  what  it  was  to  long,  to 
yearn  for  anything,  a  letter,  a  look,  a  death,  that  is 
what  I  feel  now.  The  whole  of  me  is  crying,  'I 
must  hear  her  voice  once.' ' 


144  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

"I  don't  sing,"  she  said  smiling  at  my  trembling 
eagerness. 

"In  memory  of  my  father,  who  loved  you  as  he 
has  never  loved  anyone,  to  whom  you  were  life  itself. 
Because  of  my  love  for  him,  of  his  love  for  me,  open 
this  ecstasy  of  his  to  me  so  that  there  is  not  always 
between  us  this  gulf  of  the  wonder  he  knew  and  that 
I  shall  never  know." 

"It  has  been  shut  up  so  long,  my  voice,"  she  said. 
"Who  knows  but  it  has  forgotten  how  to  fly*?"  And 
then  suddenly  she  got  up,  her  eyes  flashed,  she  defied 
the  universe  with  a  gesture. 

"Who  says  I  cannot  sing?"  she  said,  and  she  went 
to  the  piano.  Slowly  she  rumbled  out  a  wavelike 
murmur  of  notes.  "It  is  a  man's  song  I  must  sing," 
she  said,  and  she  burst  out  into  the  flood  of  passion. 

"Du  meine  Seele,  du  mein  Herz,"  she  sang. 

Her  wonderful  voice  vibrating,  throbbing,  crashed 
discord  after  discord.  For  a  moment  I  thought 
it  must  be  a  nightmare — it  could  not  be  true.  The 
agony  was  too  great.  She  laughed,  "It  has  not  gone, 
my  voice.  Ah,  it  is  good  to  sing  again."  She  went 
on  from  song  to  song,  and  by  a  superhuman  effort  of 
will  I  kept  my  hands  from  my  ears.  And  then  sud- 
denly I  saw  a  man's  white  miserable  strained  face 
and  her  husband  came  into  the  room.  She  did  not 
see  him  and  he  came  straight  to  me. 


THE    PILGRIMAGE  145 


"Fool,"  he  said  in  a  low  passionate  voice,  with  a 
burning  bitterness  in  it.  "She  does  not  know.  She 
is  deaf  when  she  sings.  She  has  lost  her  ear.  Oh, 


my  secret!" 


XV 
THE  BALL 

SHE  rested  before  dinner — or  rather  she  lay  in 
a  dark  room,  feeling  the  strings  of  her  heart 
and  mind  slowly  tightening.  "I  mustn't  get  over- 
tuned,"  she  thought  with  a  little  smile.  "I  mustn't 
get  sharp,"  and  then  trying  to  lash  her  soaring  day- 
dreams to  earth,  "perhaps  I  shall  never  be  as  happy 
as  I  am  now,"  but  they  raced  away  from  her  and 
circled  in  the  air.  She  could  hear  the  clock  ticking 
and  her  heart  beating  and  she  could  wish  that  one 
or  the  other  would  stop. 

A  feeling  of  sickness  and  faintness  was  gradually 
coming  over  her,  an  even  more  assertive  oppressive 
sense  of  excitement.  She  wished  that  she  could 
break  loose  from  time.  It  seemed  to  her  an  eternity 
before  her  maid  came.  Her  bath  soothed  her  a 
little.  Some  of  her  growing  tension  evaporated  in 
the  warm  water.  She  felt  calmer,  more  at  peace. 
She  thought  she  was  dressing  very  slowly — but  her 
trembling  fingers  were  out  of  her  control  and  it  was 
with  feverish,  unconscious  haste  that  she  dabbed 
her  face  with  powder  and  put  meaningless,  unneces- 
sary hairpins  in  superfluous  ineffective  places.  A 

little  stab  of  pleasure  went  through  her  as  she  put 

146 


THE    BALL 


on  her  new  pink  shoes  and  stockings.  She  was  glad 
that  her  pink  tulle  dress  had  only  just  been  lovingly 
extricated  from  layers  and  layers  of  tissue  paper, 
"fold  after  fold  to  the  fainting  air,"  she  murmured 
as  the  bed  was  flooded  with  crisp  rosy  billows.  She 
looked  at  her  little  black  satin  head,  the  waves  of 
which  seemed  painted  in  oil,  and  she  tucked  a  real 
camellia  with  its  dark  green  satin  leaves,  above  her 
ear.  "It  is  the  stiffest  and  most  romantic  of  flow- 
ers," she  thought,  "with  its  marvellous  ballroom 
tenue  and  its  beautiful  insolent  carriage." 

At  last  she  was  ready.  Her  dress  seemed  part  of 
her,  waves  of  filmy  petals  from  which  emerged  the 
classic  mouldings  of  her  marble  shoulders — warm 
and  white  and  firm  like  her  breasts.  Her  tiny  head 
was  carried  erect  on  its  slender  white  stalk,  her  little 
satin  feet  twinkled  below  the  billows.  She  was 
vibrating  all  through  with  electric  currents  of 
ecstacy.  Her  eyes  were  shining.  Colour  was  coming 
and  going  in  her  cheeks;  unconsciously  her  lips 
curved  into  smiles. 

When  she  arrived  everything  was  already  in  full 
swing.  A  faint  background  of  music  could  occa- 
sionally be  heard  through  the  conversation  on  the 
staircase,  roses  and  lilies  of  the  valley  competed  in 
the  dizzying  atmosphere,  chandeliers  seemed  but  the 
natural  extensions  of  rivieres  and  tiaras  and  plaques 
— velvets  and  satins  and  tinsels  made  puddles  in  the 


148  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

parquet,  while  in  cool  green  corners  low,  provocative 
laughs  followed  up  veiled  provocative  glances. 

A  gathering  recklessness  seemed  to  be  taking  hold 
of  the  evening — defiant  challenges  were  being  defi- 
antly accepted — many  an  unspoken  surrender  was 
tacitly  asked  for  and  tacitly  given — silent  irrevoc- 
able promises  were  being  sealed  without  a  word — 
debts  of  honour  indeed,  since  even  dishonour  seemed 
a  small  price  with  which  to  pay  them.  Rose  floated 
to  the  top  of  the  staircase  with  a  delightful  feeling 
that  her  feet  had  not  touched  the  ground.  Soon 
she  was  whirling  round  the  room,  her  body  aban- 
doned to  the  music,  her  eyes  searching  every  corner, 
examining  each  couple. 

At  last  she  saw  him,  but  always  he  seemed  far 
away,  at  the  other  end  of  the  room,  caught  in  a 
different  stream  of  dancers.  "When  will  he  see 
me?"  she  thought,  tragedy  engulfing  her,  and  then 
he  caught  her  eye  and  bowed.  She  could  not  believe 
that  he  had  not  touched  her;  she  had  felt  a  physical 
impact  and  she  shut  her  eyes  to  steady  herself. 

The  music  stopped. 

"Shall  we  go  out  into  the  cool?" 

She  looked  round  and  seeing  him  still  in  the  room, 
she  said : 

"I  think  I  would  like  to  stay  here  a  moment  and 
look  at  the  world,"  and  then  as  she  saw  him  walk 
out  again  &he  added: 


THE    BALL 


149 


"Perhaps  you  are  right;  it  is  very  hot." 

He  was  sitting  on  a  sofa,  laughing  and  talking. 
She  tried  to  keep  control  of  her  eyes,  not  to  let  her 
answers  get  too  disjointed.  At  last  someone  came  to 
talk  to  his  companion  and  he  got  up.  Her  heart 
sang  "He  is  coming  to  me,"  but  he  passed  down  the 
room. 

The  Prince  in  whose  honour  the  ball  was  given, 
asked  her  to  dance  with  him.  She  circled  round  and 
round,  the  centre  of  all  eyes,  the  envied  of  all 
women.  She  wondered  whether  he  saw  her,  what  he 
was  thinking  about,  whether  he  was  glad  that  she 
was  a  success,  if  he  realised  that  the  woman  he  was 
with  would  rather  be  dancing  with  the  Prince, 
whereas  she,  Rose,  in  the  whole  wide  world  only 
wanted  to  be  with  him. 

She  saw  him  walk  out  on  to  a  balcony  and  now 
she  was  completely  wretched.  The  night  seemed  full 
of  romantic  possibilities,  the  darkness  had  eaten 
him  up  out  of  her  sight,  she  dared  not  think  what 
confessions  the  stars  might  not  be  extracting  from 
him.  She  could  not  bear  to  sit  still  for  a  moment, 
she  danced  and  danced  and  danced  till  her  pink  satin 
feet  were  tired  and  dirty  and  her  nerves  gave  little 
stabbing  pains  on  a  background  of  leaden  misery. 

Again  and  again  the  Prince  came  to  her. 

"What  a  success  that  child  is,"  she  heard  a 
dowager  snap  out  resentfully. 


15O  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

"It  is  certainly  her  night,"  agreed  her  companion, 
crushing  his  monocle  into  his  eye. 

Rose  gave  a  weary  little  laugh.  A  thousand  ages 
of  frustration  weighed  her  down  and  then  suddenly 
when  complete  hopelessness  had  descended  on  her 
he  came. 

"Will  you  dance  with  me?"  he  asked. 

His  voice  lulled  her  to  sudden  peace.  All  the 
raging,  tearing  miseries  inside  her  suddenly  subsided. 
She  took  his  arm  as  in  a  dream,  the  parquet  had  sud- 
denly become  a  gilded  cloud  and  her  body  had  ceastd 
to  exist.  She  smiled  at  him  as  if  the  peace  of  full 
happiness  had  descended  on  her  for  ever.  His  eyes 
seemed  to  draw  her  in,  out  of  the  world  into  eternity. 
She  was  conscious  of  nothing  but  his  hand  on  her. 
back.  It  grew  every  minute  more  immense  and  fiery 
while  her  body  seemed  to  have  shrunk  and  become 
a  plaything  that  he  was  holding  in  his  palm.  Each 
of  his  fingers  was  portentously  alive,  the  pillars 
on  which  the  world  was  resting  and  each  time  he 
moved  one  a  little  shiver  of  fire  went  through  her. 
Proudly,  radiantly  she  looked  round  the  room. 

"Everyone  is  envying  me,"  she  thought. 

"I  don't  know  who  that  rather  insignificant  look- 
ing man  that  Rose  has  got  hold  of  now  is,"  snapped 
the  dowager. 

Round  and  round  the  room  they  went. 

"I  must  take  him  right  away  before  the  music 


THE    BALL  1^1 

stops,  or  someone  will  snatch  him  from  me,"  thought 
Rose,  "but  oh !  I  don't  want  to  be  out  of  his  arms — 
ever." 

"Shall  we  go  and  sit  down  somewhere  cool?" 
she  asked  him,  and  they  walked  out  of  the  room. 

He  told  her  a  story  about  his  father  and  her  low 
voice  was  musical  with  her  happiness.  She  didn't 
mind  what  he  talked  about — she  only  wanted  him  to 
talk  to  her — whatever  interested  him  was  the  most 
important  thing  in  the  world.  He  was  the  first  per- 
son who  had  ever  felt  anything  or  done  anything 
or  had  a  father.  She  didn't  want  ever  to  move 
again- 


"Ah,"  said  the  Prince,  "I  have  found  you  at  last. 
Will  you  come  to  supper  with  me*?" 

A  rush  of  disappointment  and  rage  came  over  her. 

"You  are  too  kind,  but  I  am  so  tired  that  1  am 
going  home." 

"You  need  a  little  champagne,"  he  said,  taking 
her  arm.  Hopelessly  she  gave  way,  throwing  behind 
her  a  little  glance  of  appeal  which  said  "later,"  but 
after  supper  she  saw  him  sitting  on  a  far-off  sofa 
talking  to  an  old  friend.  "He  doesn't  love  her," 
she  consoled  herself.  "They  have  known  one 
another  so  long."  Exhausted,  she  tore  herself  from 
the  agony  and  ecstasy  of  his  presence,  and  leaning 
back  in  her  motor  she  said,  "After  all  we  were  per- 
fectly happy  together.  He  never  would  have  talked 


152  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

like  that  about  his  father  if  he  hadn't  loved  me — a 
little,"  she  added,  trying  to  be  impartial. 

She  reached  her  bedroom  and  turned  on  the  electric 
light.  Vivisectionist,  cold,  fishlike  daylight  was  forc- 
ing its  way  relentlessly  through  chinks  in  the  cur- 
tains. The  rosy  shades  of  her  lamps  couldn't  drive 
it  away.  She  shivered.  Her  ball  dress  lay  on  the 
chair  like  a  dead  bird.  Her  satin  shoes  were  frayed 
and  dirty,  the  camellia,  limp  and  brown,  lay  among 
a  sprawling  mass  of  hair  pins. 

The  grey  dispassionate  eyes  of  dawn  ruthlessly 
examined  the  debris  of  her  ecstasy. 

She  turned  off  the  light  and  huddled  into  bed. 

"He  talked  to  such  dull  women.  After  all  you 
keep  away  from  the  people  you  really  love  at  a 
ball.  You  want  your  secret  to  be  inviolate  and  you 
don't  want  to  make  your  beloved  conspicuous." 

She  thought  of  the  old  friend  she  had  left  him 
talking  to — "such  an  old  friend,"  she  murmured,  to 
reassure  herself. 

She  remembered  the  things  he  had  said  about  his 
father.  She  remembered  that  he  had  told  her  that 
she  had  a  whimsical  smile — to  this  treasure  she  clung 
and  slowly  it  began  to  make  her  feel  happier.  "A 
whimsical  smile,"  she  smiled  to  herself,  and  apply- 
ing the  balm  to  all  the  sore  places  of  her  conscious- 
ness, she  fell  asleep. 


XVI 

FRAGMENT  OF  A  CORRESPONDENCE 

1 

FROM  HER  TO  HIM 

12  p.  m.  October  25th. 

PARTIR  c'est  toujours  mourir  un  peu.  As  your 
train  left  the  station  I  felt  that  it  was  taking 
away  not  only  you  but  whole  bits  of  me — bits  of 
my  heart  and  my  soul  and  certain  special  smiles  and 
laughs.  My  voice  doesn't  sound  the  same.  All  of 
its  low  velvety  whispering  quality  has  gone.  I  don't 
like  hearing  it — it  is  like  an  empty  box  or  an  uncut 
book. 

I  went  home  so  wearily,  feeling  that  my  limbs 
were  merely  weights  which  I  had  to  carry,  not  as  I 
do  with  you  that  my  body  is  the  covering  of  a  cur- 
rent, a  sheath  into  which  I  have  put  my  spirit. 

At  dinner  I  wore  my  yellow  dress  that  you  don't 
like,  and  I  pulled  my  hair  back  from  my  forehead 
viciously.  I  looked  a  fright. 

Count  G sat  next  to  me.  "You  are  wonder- 
ful," he  said.  "You  have  abandoned  easy  loveli- 

153 


154  !    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

ness  for  the  mystery  and  perfection  of  a  Chinese 
masterpiece." 

I  could  have  hit  him.     Several  people  came  up 
later  and  told  me  that  I  was  strangely  beautiful. 

V asked  me  to  let  him  paint  me.     I  hated  it. 

It  made  me  feel  as  if  I  were  committing  an  infidelity. 
To-morrow  I  will  do  my  hair  untidily  and  becom- 
ingly. I  will  wear  all  the  dresses  you  love — and  no 
one  will  notice  them,  because  I  have  worn  them  so 
often. 

God  bless  you. 

E. 


II  A.  M.,  October  26th. 

It  is  such  a  lovely  day.  A  real  October  day,  shot 
with  red  gold-dust,  a  stillness  so  absolute  that  the 
leaves  look  painted  on  air. 

I  wish  it  were  grey  and  cold  and  windy I 

feel  very  unshot  with  gold  myself-  My  grapevine 
of  bubbles  has  become  a  mere  refuse  of  soap  on  the 
surface  of  the  water.  How  nasty  it  sounds !  What 
I  mean  is  that  there  are  twelve  hours  of  the  day 
still  to  be  lived  through  before  I  can  begin  sleep- 
ing and  dreaming  again — and  that  during  those 
twelve  hours  I  shall  have  to  dress  and  put  hair  pins 
in  my  hair  and  tell  the  motor  where  to  go  to  and 
talk  and  listen  and  laugh  and  behave  as  if  I  were 


FRAGMENT    OF    A    CORRESPONDENCE  1^5 

alive.  And  there  won't  be  any  plans — only  engage- 
ments— and  there  won't  be  any  clothes — only  cloth- 
ing— and  everyone  will  say  the  same  thing  in  the 
same  voice. 

And  you  will  be  in  the  train  reading  and  dozing 
and  looking  very  warily  before  you  leap  into  con- 
versation with  a  casual  stranger.  Do  you  remember 
how  cross  you  were  when  I  had  that  long,  intoxi- 
cating talk  with  that  stray  Armenian*? 

I  promise  you  that  the  scum  of  the  earth  wouldn't 
tempt  me  to-day  if  you  were  here.  What  more  can 
I  say? 

Are  you  thinking  of  me  at  this  very  moment? 
Are  you  writing  to  me?     I  feel  that  there  are  no 
unsent  letters  in  your  life.     Is  that  unkind? 
God  bless  you. 

E. 


2  A.  M.,  October  26th. 

It  is  of  course  October  the  27th,  but  I  don't  feel 
as  if  it  were.  The  day,  I  need  hardly  say,  was 
fifteen  hours  long,  and  the  hoars  were  longer  than 
anything  you  could  imagine.  The  clock  never 
seemed  to  strike,  no  one  ever  seemed  to  leave,  every- 
thing resolutely  refused  to  come  to  an  end. 

At  dinner  I  put  on  the  most  wonderful  gramo- 


156  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

phone  record  of  myself — it  seemed  the  only  thing 
to  do — and  afterward  I  played  bridge.  I  tried  to 
feel  that  I  was  God  battling  with  Providence,  and 
that  the  green  baize  table  was  staging  life  in  minia- 
ture (that  is  what  you  ought  to  feel  when  you  are 
gambling),  but  I  couldn't  feel  anything  except  that 
I  was  holding  a  lot  of  absurd  dead  bits  of  cardboard 
in  my  hand,  and  that  I  was  apparently  winning 
money  perfectly  automatically  at  a  tremendous  rate. 

When  I  came  to  bed  I  was  as  tired  as  one  only  is 
when  the  surface  of  one's  mind  has  been  working 
perfectly  without  being  fed  by  real  attention  and 
interest. 

Have  you  arrived?  Are  you  in  bed  asleep  or  sub- 
consciously wondering  why  the  telephone  doesn't 
ring  and  a  whispering  voice  like  the  rustle  of  a  cur- 
tain isn't  saying  "Good-night — God  bless  you, 
always," — which  of  course  it  is. 

E. 

4 

FROM   HIM   TO   HER 

October  JOfh. 

I  was  so  glad  to  get  your  excellent  letter.  The 
journey  was  incredibly  cold  and  the  light  went  out 
every  time  the  train  slowed  down.  I  tried  to  read 
a  pamphlet  on  plebiscites,  but  soon  gave  it  up  in 


FRAGMENT    OF    A    CORRESPONDENCE  157 

favour  of  a  detective  novel,  and  then  sleep.  The 
train  was  a  patchwork  of  nationalities,  but  I  fared 
fairly  well  with  an  Italian  Major  in  my  compart- 
ment./  with  whom  I  could  practise  my  Italian.  You 
would  have  been  perfectly  happy  picking  up  unde- 
sirable acquaintances,  but  as  you  know,  I  haven't 
your  gifts.  I  found  a  lot  of  things  waiting  for  me 
here.  My  agent  had  come  down  from  Scotland  and 
we  had  to  go  into  all  sorts  of  estimates  and  things. 
I  should  have  liked  your  advice. 

I  met  your  friend  H in  the  street.    He  said 

he  had  rather  gathered  you  were  not  very  well,  but 
I  told  him  that  was  not  the  case.  He  then  asked 
me  if  you  were  happy,  which  seemed  to  me  odd — 
not  to  say  impertinent.  I  can't  think  what  you  see 
in  him.  To  me  he  is  like  a  hysterical  woman. 

Take  care  of  yourself.    Bless  you. 

M. 

5 

FROM  HER  TO  HIM 

October  2()tJi. 

I  haven't  had  a  line  from  you— not  even  a  wire. 
I  don't  know  whether  you  are  dead  or  alive — or 
rather  I  do  know,  as  presumably  I  should  have  heard 
if  you  were  dead.  Why  don't  people  take  the 


158  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

trouble  to  let  you  know  that  they  are  alive?  It  is 
so  much  more  important  The  whole  system  is 
wrong.  No  sooner  do  I  die,  than  all  the  flowers  I 
have  ever  longed  for  in  life  pour  in.  Everyone 
says  all  of  the  nice  things  that  I  would  so  have 
loved  to  have  repeated  to  me ;  my  enemies  and  even 
my  friends  forgive  me,  charitable  memories  collect 
everything  that  is  charming  and  overlook  everything 
that  is  not — and  why?  Simply  because  I  am  no 
longer  there  to  be  made  happy. 

Meanwhile  here  I  am  without  a  snowdrop  or  a 
letter,  trying  to  remember  nice  things  that  you  said 
to  me  months  ago,  and  succeeding  in  remembering 
nasty  things  you  said  to  me  weeks  or  even  days  ago. 
In  fact  I  am  cold  and  depressed  and  cross  and  disap- 
pointed and  ungrateful. 

Also  I  am  in  the  state  when  I  can't  help  talking 
about  you — not  necessarily  to  say  important  things 
— in  fact  of  course,  I  have  nothing  to  say  about  you 
— but  because  I  like  having  your  name  on  my  lips, 
because  I  like  hearing  it  on  other  people's. 

Promise  not  to  write  me  the  "Where-is-it-all-to- 
end"  sort  of  letter,  or  the  certificate  kind:  "You 
don't  know  what  our  intimacy  has  meant  to  me." 
I  know  the  "J"  would  be  the  end  of  everything — 
or  rather  the  end  of  me  and  the  beginning  of  some- 
one else.  My  dear  one,  I  am  not  abusing  you  for 
not  writing — don't  imagine  that — and  I  don't  mind 


FRAGMENT    OF    A    CORRESPONDENCE 

what  you  say  when  you  do  (that  is  probably  not 
true).     I  only  want  to  see  your  beloved  writing  to 
know  you  were  thinking  of  me ;  to  know  that  you  are 
alive  and  well  and  even  happy. 
You  see —  well,  God  bless  you. 

E. 


FROM    H.   TO   E. 

November  3rd. 
Beloved  Lisa : 

I  met  your  friend  M  in  the  street.  Must  you  love 
him?  Do  you  love  him*?  Am  I  being  impertinent*? 
Must  you  like  him?  Do  you  like  him?  Am  I  being 
silly?  I  foolishly  stumbled  into  sincerity — he  was 
very  chilly.  I  called  you  "Lisa"  and  he  called  you 
"Lady  Raeburn."  I  told  him  you  weren't  well, 
which  was  idiotic  of  me  as  he  naturally  must  have 
known  whether  it  was  true  or  not  (are  you  well?), 
and  I  asked  him  if  you  were  happy.  I  know  it  was 
outrageous  but  there  was  something  about  his  spats 
that  got  my  nerves.  Lisa,  can  you  bear  his  spats? 
Think  how  you  hate  spats  or  won't  even  that  do  any 
good? 

I  wish  you  weren't  as  wretched  as  I  know  you  are. 
Lisa,  darling  blessed,  there  is  never  anything  I  can 
do,  is  there?  jj. 


l6o  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 


FROM   HIM   TO   HER 

November  5th. 

What  a  wonderful  correspondent  you  are,  with 
your  unerring  sense  of  the  right  word  and  the  most 
expressive  phrase.  Thank  you  for  your  letters.  It 
is  always  good  to  hear  from  you. 

London  is  very  foggy  and  cold.  I  have  just  been 
north  and  tried  to  settle  things  up.  Do  you  remem- 
ber talking  to  me  about  a  young  MacDonald? 
Would  he  be  any  use  as  an  agent*?  I  would  be  very 
glad  of  your  opinion,  and  also  of  his  address.  My 
plans  are  unsettled  and  the  F.  O.  seems  in  no  hurry. 
Here  everything  is  very  gloomy  and  the  industrial 
situation  looks  blacker  every  day.  I  met  your  friend 

S— the  other  day.    He  has  been  making  a  series 

of  the  most  mischievous  speeches,  and  I  would  have 
preferred  not  to  shake  hands  with  him.  However, 
out  of  deference  to  you  I  did,  but  when  he  called  you 
by  your  Christian  name  I  would  have  liked  to  have 
kicked  him.  Charity  and  curiosity  seem  to  me  to 
lead  you,  if  not  astray,  at  any  rate  in  very  queer 
directions  sometimes. 

Don't  think  I  am  being  censorious.  You  are  you. 
Bless  you. 

M. 


FRAGMENT    OF    A    CORRESPONDENCE  l6l 

8 

FROM  HER  TO  HIM 

November  2nd. 

I  have  just  had  a  letter  from  you,  at  last.  Such 
a  characteristic,  impersonal,  discreet  letter.  From 
where  do  you  get  your  almost  legal  sense  of  the  po- 
tential possibilities  of  the  written  word?  All  the 
same,  I  love  hearing  from  you  because  I  think, 
"What  does  it  matter  what  he  writes?  At  each 
word  he  is  thinking  of  me,  so  one  word  is  the  same 
as  another."  I'd  love  to  have  given  your  agent  my 
advice  and  he  would  have  loved  getting  it.  In  fact 
I  should  have  been  invaluable.  Can't  I  send  you  an 
agricultural  opinion  by  post? 

Dear  one,  I'm  teasing  you.  I  love  you  to  ask  me 
what  I  think  about  anything — always. 

I'm  sorry  you  don't  like  H.  I  knew  you  never 
would.  He  is  perhaps  a  little  over-anxious  to  think 
that  one  is  in  a  draught — in  life,  I  mean — but  it  is  a 
delicious  fault.  All  of  the  little  chinks  in  my  time, 
that  were  kept  so  carefully  and  lovingly  and 
religiously  for  a  possible  you,  are  now  filled  in.  In 
fact,  hope  has  been  taken  out  of  my  days  and  they 
are  very  full. 


l62  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

Remember  that  a  letter  from  you  is  the  only 
thing  in  life  that  can  happen  to  me. 
God  bless  you. 

E. 


E.  TO   H. 

November  6th. 

There  are  so  many  things  you  can  do  for  me. 
To  begin  with  you  can  be  alive,  which  makes  me 
happier  every  time  I  think  of  it.  And  then  you 
can  always  make  me  laugh  which  is  the  most  divine 
of  all  gifts  Then,  too,  you  love  me  a  little,  which 
is  a  very  great  and  undeserved  joy  to  me.  And  of 
course  you  are  the  best  friend  in  the  world. 

Do  you  think  you  could  ever  bring  yourself  to 

like  M ?    It  would  be  delightful  for  me  if  you 

could  but  don't  try  if  the  effort  is  to  be  too  great. 
It  is  true  he  does  wear  spats — and  I  still  don't  like 
them. 

Yes,  I  am  afraid  I  must  love  him.  It  is  as  you 
surmise,  incredibly  inconvenient.  Still,  I  am  only 
wretched  in  proportion  to  my  happiness,  so  you 
mustn't  be  sorry  for  me  any  more.  But  you  must 
please  still  be  fond  of  me. 

Lisa, 


FRAGMENT  OF  A  CORRESPONDENCE     163 

10 
FROM  HER  TO  HIM 

November  fth. 

Another  letter  from  you!  Almost — not  quite — 
a  love  letter.  "You  are  you."  My  dear,  what  a 
confession  in  print !  How  indiscreet  you  are  becom- 
ing. You  really  must  be  more  careful. 

So  "curious  and  charitable"  are  your  recipe  for 
me — or  rather  for  my  habit  of  making  undesirable 
friends.  Curious  I  certainly  am.  Charitable,  per- 
haps. I  wonder.  Or  tolerant,  or  understanding*? 
Intellectually  interested  and  morally  lazy  is  prob- 
ably the  right  definition.  The  thought  of  charity 
in  connection  with  S.  makes  me  smile.  Even  I  with 
my  passionate  belief  that  the  great  successes  are 
usually  the  real  incompris  have  never  made  that 
claim  for  him.  Why  he  isn't  even  lonely — surely 
an  unpardonable  omission  in  a  crusader;  and  he  is 
that,  though  you  prefer  to  think  of  him  as  an  agi- 
tator— which  of  course  he  is  too.  So  are  we  all,  if 
we  believe  enough  in  our  ideas — or  have  any  ideas 
to  believe  in. 

This  is  not  an  attack  on  the  other  ideal  of  life — 
yours — even  sometimes  mine.  I  know  that  public 
service  is  a  wonderful  thing,  that  the  civil  service 
is  the  epic  of  England,  our  only  just  claim  to  our 


164  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

Empire.  No  other  country  in  the  world  has  its 
cream  so  proud  to  be  cast  for  invisible  roles.  I  think 
my  nationalism  is  based  on  wonder  and  gratitude 
for  that.  Also,  I  am  mixing  my  metaphors  and 
writing  a  treatise.  Worse  than  that,  I  am  defending 
your  own  case  to  you,  when  I  had  meant  to  write 
an  eloquent  plea  for  the  picturesque. 

But  to  return  to  S.  He  is  absolutely  sincere  and 
absolutely  disinterested — both  things  you  love.  Do 
open  the  windows  at  the  back  of  your  mind  and 
give  the  view  your  careful  and  loving  consideration. 
There  are  so  many  roads  without  avenues  or  lodge 
gates  or  even  sign  posts.  S.  will  always  go  across 
country — and  I  asked  him  to  call  me  by  my  Chris- 
tian name.  I  was  dreadfully  afraid  he  might  refuse, 
but  he  didn't. 

ShUl  I  write  and  tell  him  never  to  do  it  to  you, 
but  to  try  and  remember  that  you  are  the  early 
Nineteenth  Century  English  gentleman,  or  would 
it  be  easier  for  him  if  he  tried  to  think  of  you  as  a 
butler? 

Oh,  my  dear,  what  a  glorious  day  it  will  be  when 
you  first  like  one  of  my  odd  friends !  As  for  yours, 
I  am  never  allowed  to  see  them — the  females  ones, 
I  mean.  I  should  hate  the  sheltered  life  you  like 
for  me  if  it  didn't  usually  land  us  in  a  tete-a-tete. 
So  after  all,  I  say  "Long  live  your  proscriptions"! 
God  bless  you.  E. 


FRAGMENT  OF  A  CORRESPONDENCE     165 


11 

November  Qth. 

To-day  is  the  Lord  Mayor's  show  day,  isn't  it*? 
What  funny  things  calendars  remember  days  by. 
Some  day  I  will  write  one  of  my  own. 

September  joth.  M  said,  "I  hope  your  child  will 
be  like  you — not  quite  so  clever  perhaps  but  with 
all  your  exquisite  tenderness." 

October  3rd.  M  said,  "However  strained  our  re- 
lations may  be  I  can't  help  the  delight  I  take  in 
being  with  you — my  joy  in  the  light  of  your  mind." 

October  6th.  M  said,  "If  I  take  you  to  that  res- 
taurant you  mustn't  look  all  round  you  with  your 
whimsical  smile." 

October  8th.  M  said,  "You  would  have  been  a 
good  soldier  because  you  have  imagination,  humanity 
and  no  sentimentalism." 

October  loth.  M  said,  "I  can't  understand  your 
absence  of  discretion  and  caution,  your  impervious- 
ness  to  what  people  think.  I  like  hiding  my  treasuie. 
You  think  that  if  a  thing  is  good  it  doesn't  matter 
how  many  people  see  it — I  think  your  attitude  makes 
life  very  difficult." 

That  was  a  defeat.  But  I  suppose  my  calendar 
ought  to  have  defeats  registered  too. 

I  wonder  if  I  could  remember  365  nice  things  that 


l66  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

you  have  said  to  me.  I  think  that  if  you  have  said 
them  I  could.  Some  night  I  will  try  and  then  when 
I  can't  get  beyond  twenty-five  I  shall  assume  that  I 
have  lost  my  memory. 

Madame  de  S said  you  were  charming  and 

that  you  ought  to  marry  and  I  said  "Yes,"  rather 
vaguely,  and  then — as  women  always  do  in  those 
circumstances — that  you  were  very  difficile  and 
asked  for  so  much — by  the  "so  much"  of  course  they 
mean  themselves.  I  love  hearing  Phoebe  say  with  a 
little  self-conscious  smirk,  "John  asks  for  everything 
in  a  woman,"  as  if  everything  were  eternally  and 
inevitably  synonymous  for  Phoebe.  I  am  so  glad 
that  I  recognise  all  the  tricks  of  my  trade  in  myself, 
as  I  do  get  such  fun  out  of  following  them  in  my 
friends. 

I  oughtn't  to  write  like  this  to  you  ought  I?  It 
really  is  sad  to  think  that  through  all  your  various 
adventures  you  believed  in  women — till  you  met 
me — and  I  am  hardly  even  an  adventure.  It  is 
rather  a  pretty  theme  that  it  requires  une  honnete 
femme  to  shatter  your  illusions. 

I  forgot  to  tell  you  that  Mme.  de  S said  that 

women  without  temperament  fell  like  ninepins — 
I  see  her  point.  If  you  regard  yourself  as  a  gift  and 
there  is  no  physical  indulgence  concerned  you  can 
entangle  the  whole  thing  in  what  is  probably  a  ficti- 
tious sort  of  nobility.  I  think  I  shall  teach  my  chil- 


FRAGMENT  OF  A  CORRESPONDENCE     167 

dren  to  beware  of  the  cult  of  generosity.     It  is  a 
dangerous  thing. 

God  bless  you. 

E. 


12 
FROM  HIM  TO  HER 

November  ptk. 

Thank  you  for  your  admirable  eulogy  of  the 
civil  service.  "Invisible  roles"  is  excellent  though 
we  diplomats  certainly  get  the  best  of  it  there.  S. 
may  be  everything  that  you  say  but  what  a  pity  that 
ability  and  disinterestedness  should  serve  such  a 
cause.  I  am  still  old-fashioned  enough  to  think  that 
what  you  believe  in  is  important. 

Here  it  is  cold  and  grey.  The  F.  O.  haven't 
made  up  their  mind  where  to  send  me,  my  agent's 
reports  are  most  discouraging  and  altogether  I  am 
in  the  blues.  All  the  accounts  of  you  are  dazzling 
as  always.  I  heard  of  a  battle  of  wits  between  you 
and  Briand.  How  much  you  get  out  of  life !  How 
do  you  do  it?  I  am  getting  very  middle-aged.  What 
a  vitalizer  you  are.  I  wish  I  could  go  round  and 
be  stimulated  by  you. 

Bless  you. 

M. 


l68  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

13 
FROM  HER  TO  HIM 

November  nth. 

I  have  just  had  your  dear  letter  saying  that  you 
wished  you  could  come  round  and  see  me.  Imagine 
what  I  feel  about  it !  Why  are  you  depressed  dearest 
and  best?  What  can  I  do  for  you?  Give  your 
agent  advice"?  I  very  nearly  got  into  the  train  and 
went  to  you-  I  wonder  what  deterred  me?  Could 
it  have  been  the  Channel?  That  really  would  have 
been  to  allow  my  sea-sickness  too  much  importance. 
Could  it  have  been  the  almost  insuperable  difficulties 
of  producing  an  excuse  for  suddenly  rushing  over  to 
London?  Could  it  have  been  a  slight  lurking  fear 
that  your  mood  might  have  changed  by  the  time  I 
arrived?  I  don't  think  it  could  have  been  that.  You 
know  how  ridiculously  disproportionately  I  always 
believe  in  your  wanting  to  see  me. 

At  any  rate,  remembering  that  in  your  view  cow- 
ardice is  the  better  part  of  recklessness,  here  I  am 
leading  what  you  so  civilly  describe  as  a  dazzling 
life.  Isn't  success  a  strange  thing,  always  rushing  at 
you  in  the  wrong  shape  at  the  wrong  time?  Mine 
has  always  come  to  me  on  the  highways  when  I  have 


FRAGMENT    OF    A    CORRESPONDENCE  169 

wanted  it  on  the  byways.    I  wish  you  were  here.    I 
wish  I  were  there.    I  wish  we  were  anywhere. 
Bless  you, 

E. 


14 

FROM  HIM  TO  HER 

November 

I  have  had  two  letters  from  you — one  with  your 
calendar  and  a  characteristic  attack  on  your  own  sex 
and  the  other  running  down  your  own  success. 
What  you  seem  to  forget  is  that  with  you  by-ways 
inevitably  become  highways.  You  take  the  most 
obscure  looking  lane  and  no  sooner  do  you  set  foot 
on  it  than  you  transform  it  into  the  main  road.  How 
you  manage  your  life  at  all  I  don't  know,  with 
searchlights  turned  on  to  you  from  all  sides  and  an 
incurable  tendency  to  behave  as  if  you  were  in  the 
dark.  But  there  you  are,  in  spite  of  it  all,  with  more 
friends  than  anyone. 

I  suppose  I  must  content  myself  with  the  formula 
that  with  your  outrageous  vanity  you  insist  on  re- 
garding as  a  compliment.     You  are  you. 
Bless  you, 

M. 


17O  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

15 

FROM    HER   TO    HIM 

November  l6th. 

The  most  wonderful  thing  has  happened.  Can 
you  guess  what  it  is?  How  long  can  I  go  on  writing 
without  telling  you?  For  pages  and  pages  I  hope. 
Your  last  letter  was  delightful  almost,  if  I  dare 
suggest  it,  uncharacteristically  so,  by  which  of 
course  I  mean  that  your  letters  in  a  book  of  memoirs 
would  not  be  considered  enchanting.  I  think  that 
everyone  would  say,  "How  curious  that  she 
should  have  loved  him  so  much  when  he  obvi- 
ously didn't  care  for  her.  And  what  a  stiff  stilted 
man."  Whereas  I  know  that  it  is  not  in  the  least 
curious  that  I  should  love  you  as  much  as  I  do  and 
that,  in  an  odd  unsatisfactory  adorable  way  of  which 
you  are  sometimes  and  I  am  always  conscious, 
you  do  care  for  me.  How  could  they  know  that 
your  letters  are  really  love  letters?  That  when  you 
tell  me  about  your  agent  you  are  saying  "I  love 
you,"  and  that  when  you  are  talking  about  S's  per- 
nicious speeches  it  is  equivalent  to  a  "my  own 
precious  darling."  I  emphasise  the  'own'  because  it 
is,  I  think,  the  S.  complex.  Aren't  I  vain  to-day? 
Vainer  almost  than  ever  before.  That  is  because  I 


FRAGMENT    OF    A    CORRESPONDENCE  1JI 

am  happy — singingly,  dancingly  happy.  Happy 
with  all  the  glorious  moments  that  are  coming  to  me 
and  that  being  in  my  mind  are  already  here.  The 
fact  is — no,  I  don't  want  to  tell  you  just  yet.  The 
Ambassador  praised  you  tremendously  to  me  last 
night.  I  was  silent  with  pleasure  and  then  feeling 
that  something  was  expected  of  me  I  said  "He  is  a 
very  old  friend  of  mine,"  which  is  not,  I  suppose, 
quite  accurate,  as  we  have  only  known  one  another 
for  nine  months.  But  it  is  true  all  the  same — and 
why  should  I  conceal  the  real  truth  from  the  Ambas- 
sador? He  then  said  that  you  ought  to  marry,  which 
is  always  a  tactless  thing  to  say  about  an  unmarried 
man  to  any  married  woman.  I  was  disgusted  but  I 
let  him  go  on  talking  about  "nice"  girls  (whatever 
that  may  mean!)  until  we  were  interrupted.  He 
then  went  away  with  a  triumphant  expression,  no 
doubt  saying  to  himself  "I  have  taken  the  bull  by 
the  horns,"  which  I  daresay  he  did,  but  the  bull 
is  still  in  the  same  place. 

I  can't  go  on  any  longer;  I  must  tell  you.  I  am 
coming  to  London  for  a  whole  week !  Think  of  it — 
on  the  days  when  I  positively  must  do  things  you  will 
be  the  cement  and  on  the  days  when  I  only  ought 
to  be  doing  things  you  will  be  the  bricks,  and  all 
the  time  there  will  be  odd  moments  which  will  be 
ours,  yours  and  mine,  and  long  hours  and  unex- 
pected times And — I  am  coming  alone — I 


172  I    HAVE    ONLY    MYSELF    TO    BLAME 

shall  be  able  to  ring  you  up  at  night  and  whisper 
"God  bless  you." 

Everyday  and  all  day  I  plan  my  week  and  fill 
it  fuller  and  fuller  of  you — and  already  almost  I 
am  beginning  to  cry  at  the  thought  that  it  will 
come  to  an  end.  Oh,  my  dearest,  I  am  glad  I  am 
alive. 

Bless  you, 
E. 


TELEGRAM  FROM  HIM  TO  HER. 

Please  wire  what  train  you  come  by. 

M. 


TELEGRAM    FROM    HER   TO    HIM. 

Arrive  Friday  7 150. 

Blessings, 

E. 


THE    END 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

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